
Class Jj-2A 



Book._ 
Copyright ]^^. 






COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT; 



GENERAL HISTORY 
WAY MARKS 



A Special Text designed to direct the Lesson-memory 

and Thought-connections of General 

History Students 



BY 



CHARLES C. BOYER, Ph.D. 



AUTHOR OF 
EDUCATION, 



CONCRETE PSYCHOLOGY, "PSYCHIC INITIATIVE IN 
"principles AND METHODS OF TEACHING," ETC. 




PHILADELPHIA &= LONDON 
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 

1902 



Copyright, 1902 

BY 

J. B. LiPPiNCOTT Company 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

Tyw^ COHfces RtCEiVED 

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CnPVBWHT ENTPV 

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Electrotyped and Printed by 
J. B. Lippincott Company^ Philadelphia^ U. S. A. 



PREFACE 

General history texts, in order to cover the 
ground satisfactorily from the side of information, 
have had to be stretched into very forbidding pro- 
portions. In the effort to conquer a million of the 
details thus offered to the student, he becomes a 
memory-slave and misses the vital thing in the 
study of history, — namely, the logical connections 
of events, or the science aspect. It is hoped that 
in building the logical connections so commonly 
missed by students into a shorter text rather than 
a skeleton outline, the writer may have succeeded 
in directing learners without delay to points of 
most importance from the thought side, redeeming 
them at the same time from aimless memory work. 

And yet the highest interests of pedagogy, 
whether we consider roundness of culture or 
breadth of scholarship, demand the laboratory, or 
library method of study, along the lines of thought 
embodied in this shorter text. The book is, there- 
fore, never to be used alone, but always in connec- 
tion with larger texts, such as Myers, Duruy, etc., 
together with cyclopaedias and reference-books. 
As a thought-companion, holding the pupil to the 
logic of events and guiding his judgment in his 

3 



4 PREFACE 

cumulations of facts, details, names, places, etc., 
this text ought to serve a much- felt need in our 
secondary schools. Sincerely hoping that the book 
may accomplish its purpose, the author respect- 
fully offers it to his friends. 

Chas. C. Boyer. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PreJ-ace 3 

Introduction 7 

History as Science 7 

The Origin of Nations 7 

Ancient Times 9 

China 11 

India 14 

Egypt 'jr ' . .-. ri-«~»^. 17 

Chaldea 21 

Assyria"^ 21 

Babylonia ^. 22 

Hebrews V. 25 

Phoenicians^-^ 28 

Persia ^. 30 

Greeks W. Z2> 

Romans 49 

Middle Ages 81 

Teutonic Kingdoms 81 

Conversion of Barbarians 82 

Monasticism 82 

Romance Nations 83 

Mohammedans 84 

Franks • • . . 85 

Norsemen 87 

The Popes of the Middle Ages 88 

Feudalism 91 

Chivalry 92 

Crusades 93 

Turanians of the Middle Ages 94 

City Republics of the Middle Ages 95 

5 



6 CONTENTS 

PAGB 

The Nations of the Middle Ages 96 

England 97 

France 99 

Spain loi 

Germany 102 

Russia 103 

Italy 103 

Northern Countries 104 

Formation of National Literatures 104 

Revival of Learning 106 

Modern Ages m 

The Age of Religious Revolts 112 

Germany 112 

Spain 114 

England 116 

Netherlands 119 

France 122 

Thirty Years' War 124 

The Age of Political Revolutions 129 

France 129 

England 145 

Germany 158 

Kings of Prussia 159 

Emperors of Germany 164 

Russia 165 

Italy 171 

United States 173 

Settlements 174 

Colonial Wars 175 

United States Government 177 

United States Wars 179 

United States Treaties 184 

Material Resources ' 187 

Population 187 

Religion 188 

Education 189 

Literature 190 

World Prospects 191 

Index Remarks 193 



GENERAL HISTORY 
WAY MARKS 

History is the science of events. As a study 
the science of events begins with observation, the 
ascertainment of facts, as in the case of Penn's 
treaty with the Indians; through inductive com- 
parison of causes, as in the case of wars, history 
rises to a knowledge of laws, or principles; and, 
finally, through deductive comparison the study of 
history becomes practical philosophy, the applica- 
tion of laws, or principles, to citizenship, states- 
manship, and morality. Through conspicuous 
world-crises the course of events breaks up for 
students into ancient, mediaeval, and modern 
periods. 

THE ORIGIN OF NATIONS 

RACES 

The human race, divided, as it commonly is, into 
races, on the bases of variations in form, features, 
and color, probably had its origin in Asia. Over- 
population caused successive waves of migration. 
Thus arose the differences that now justify race- 
distinctions. If the Turanian, or Yellow race, 
gradually covering Asia, Europe, and America, 

7 



8 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

was the original race, and the Flood was not geo- 
graphically universal, the present race-differences 
are readily explained as the effect of new environ- 
ments. According to the foregoing hypothesis, the 
Caucasian, or White race, became the active, or 
historical race. 

NATIONS 

Over-population after the Flood, causing migra- 
tions as before, produced the Hamites of Egypt, 
the Semites of the Tigris-Euphrates basin, etc., 
and the Aryans, or Indo-European nations. Emi- 
grations from the nest-places of civilization, to- 
gether with subsequent conquests and commingling 
of nations, account sufficiently for present national 
characteristics, such as differences in language, 
customs, powers, etc. The process of race differ- 
entiation has not ceased by any means, but will 
eventually find its limits in geographical grand 
divisions and the predominance of superior civil- 
izations. 



ANCIENT TIMES 



CHINA 

POLITICAL HISTORY 

THE CHINESE 

The valley of the Yellow River was settled by 
a wandering band of Turanians probably before 
3000 B.C. This settlement was the origin of the 
Chinese nation. 

EMPIRE 

(i) The government of China is a parental 
monarchy, subject to ancient laws and customs. 
(2) Che Hwang-te, the most illustrious of the 
ancient emperors, overthrew the feudal system into 
which the government had degenerated, and re- 
stored the empire. In order to stop the incursions 
of the nomad Tartars he constructed the Great 
Wall, and, when the Classics were quoted against 
his reformatory innovations, he burned all the 
books that he could find and persecuted men of 
letters. His reign, which lasted from 246 to 210 
B.C., was followed by centuries of political power 
and internal energy. (3) During the Middle 
Ages, China, then known as Cathay, together with 
the rest of Asia and parts of Europe, suffered 
greatly at the hands of the Mongol conquerors, 
Genghis Khan and his descendant Tamerlane. (4) 

In 1644 the Manchu Tartars invaded the Celestial 

II 



12 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Empire and founded the present Tsin dynasty. 
The Manchu emperors have always opposed inno- 
vations, adhering strictly to ancient customs and 
laws. This anti-foreign policy has caused serious 
conflicts with European nations, the latest trouble 
being that of the " Boxers." At this writing the 
emperor of China, a man of progressive ideas, is 
overruled by the dowager queen. The late Li 
Hung Chang and the learned Wu Ting Fang de- 
serve attention. 

CIVILIZATION 

RELIGION 

( I ) The ancestral ideal of the Chinese was em- 
bodied into a religious system by Confucius, or 
Kong the Philosopher. (2) It is a system of po- 
litical and social morals, from which the idea of 
God and immortality are practically absent. (3) 
Buddhism and Taoism have been added to Chinese 
Confucianism. 

LITERATURE 

(i) The literature of the Chinese consists 
chiefly of the so-called Nine Classics, a collection 
of works some of which are very ancient and all 
of which are held in great esteem. The disciples 
of Confucius wrote the last four books, probably 
in the fifth and fourth century before Christ. (2) 
The Nine Classics have to do fundamentally with 
the relations of parents and children, husband and 
wife, sovereign and subject, superiors and infe- 



CHINA 



13 



riors. Justice, uprightness, universal charity, and 
conformity with the customs of ancestors are en- 
joined upon all Chinese alike. (3) The Nine 
Classics, with filial piety as the basis of all pre- 
scriptions, have furnished the policy and aim of the 
Chinese Empire through all its centuries of ex- 
istence. Inasmuch as the Chinese language is 
ideographic, consisting of about fifty thousand 
characters, at least five thousand of which it is 
necessary for ordinary readers to know, the masses 
of China have not been able to keep pace with 
other nations. 

SOCIETY 

(i) A parental monarchy, China does not tol- 
erate castes and slaves. (2) The masses are sub- 
ordinate directly to the emperor, who is neverthe- 
less relieved in the government of his vast empire 
by princes. Ancestral customs control even the 
minutest detail in the conduct of the nation and 
its communities. (3) Among the results are 
social contentment and national continuance, to- 
gether with serious arrest of development in 
nearly all other directions. 

References: (i) Myers; (2) Duruy; (3) Outlook^ July 12, 
1902 ; (4) "Village Life in China." 



INDIA 

THE. HINDOOS 

More than fifteen centuries before Christ, Aryan 
conquerors from Bactria entered the valleys of the 
Indus and the Ganges, subjugating all non- Aryan 
aborigines and producing a rigid caste system. 
Thus began the Hindoo nation. 

POLITICAL HISTORY 

NATIONAL LIFE 

The Hindoos, a poetic and religious people, have 
almost no political history prior to Alexander's 
conquest of India, 327 B.C. From that time on 
its systems of philosophy, its wealth, and its com- 
merce have been important factors in the world's 
history. In our days India is subject to Great 
Britain, and is rapidly undergoing great changes 
in religion and customs. 

CIVILIZATION 

SYSTEM or CASTES 

(i) The conflict of races in Northern India 
gave rise to what is known as castes, or rigid hered- 
itary social divisions. (2) The Brahmans, or 
priests, the Kshatriyas, or warriors, and the Vais- 
yas, or laborers and merchants, representing the 
14 



INDIA 15 

Aryan conquerors, were the ruling castes. The 
Sudras, or artisans, were the despised and op- 
pressed non-Aryan aborigines. Violation of caste 
regulations produced the Pariahs, or outcasts. (3) 
The sacerdotal supremacy to which the other castes 
have so long been subordinate, has had remarkable 
intellectual and moral consequences for the Hin- 
doos. 

LITERATURE 

(i) The Brahmans, writing in Sanskrit, prob- 
ably the oldest language in the world, produced a 
voluminous sacred literature. (2) The Vedas, 
like the Mahabharata, sometimes called the Indian 
Iliad, relate the Aryan conquests of India, but con- 
tain remarkably beautiful hymns, together with 
thousands of ceremonial caste prescriptions, social 
and religious. (3) The ideals set up in this In- 
dian literature have continued dominant up to our 
times, and are only slowly giving way to foreign 
influence. 

RELIGION 

( I ) The original nature- worship of the Aryans 
soon developed into pantheism in India. (2) Ac- 
cordingly, Brahma, an impersonal force, is the 
source and end of all things. The Hindoo counts 
on ascetic perfections and transmigration of souls 
as an ultimate restoration to blessedness in Brahma. 
(3) In the sixth century before Christ Gautama, 
an Indian Prince, surnamed Buddha, or the Wise, 



i6 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

reformed Brahmanism, adding the doctrine of Nir- 
vana, or deliverance, and offering all religious 
rights to all castes. Buddhism gained the ascend- 
ency over Brahmanism for centuries, but, by the 
eighth century after Christ, it was driven out of 
almost every part of India. Wonderful to say, 
however, it has, through the missionary zeal of 
its adherents, become the creed of about one-third 
of the human race. 

References : (i) Myers ; (2) Duruy. 



EGYPT 

THE EGYPTIANS 

A Hamitic migration across the isthmus of 
Suez, antedating the Turanian settlement of 
China, was the origin of the ancient Egyptians, 
a race distinguished for its ambitious kings and 
its learned priests. 

POLITICAL HISTORY 

NATIONAL LIFE 

(i) The history of Egypt is inseparably con- 
nected with its unique climate and the river Nile. 
(2) The first great capital of Egypt was Mem- 
phis, founded by the mythical Menes of the First 
Dynasty. Historians enumerate more than thirty 
Egyptian dynasties, or races of kings. (3) The 
Fourth, or Pyramid Dynasty, was so called because 
ambitious kings, like Kufu I., built massive gran- 
ite pyramids, or royal tombs, principally at Gizeh. 
(4) The Twelfth Dynasty, with its royal seat at 
Thebes, was a brilliant but short-lived dynasty. It 
was overthrown by Semitic invaders from Syria. 
These conquerors are known as Hyksos, or Shep- 
herd Kings. Memphis was their capital. They 
allowed the Hebrews to settle in Egypt, and 

reigned about five hundred years. (5) Amosis, 

2 17 



18 , GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

conqueror of the Hyksos, founded the Eighteenth 
Dynasty, best represented by Thothmes III. He 
built famous obehsks and began to build the re- 
nowned temple of Karnak. (6) The best kings 
of the Nineteenth Dynasty were Seti I. and his 
son, Rameses II., great warriors and builders. 
Seti I. added the Hall of Columns to the temple of 
Karnak, and began a Suez canal. Rameses II., 
reigning sixty-seven years, built obelisks, erected 
temples, and made the Hebrews his slaves. It was 
during his son's reign that the exodus took place. 
(7) With the beginning of the Twentieth Dy- 
nasty, Egypt, through her expansion policy, began 
to decline. (8) Psammetichus, the founder of 
the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, employed Greek mer- 
cenaries, thus causing many of his own soldiers 
to revolt, but giving great advantages to foreign 
countries. His son, Necho II., to facilitate com- 
merce, attempted to reopen the canal of Seti and 
Rameses. (9) Cambyses, King of Persia, over- 
threw the government of Egypt, 527 b.c. Since 
that day Egypt has never been independent. 
Through Alexander's conquest (331 b.c.) began 
the dynasty of his successors, the world-famous 
Ptolemies, whose last representative, the beautiful 
Cleopatra, died 30 b.c. Then came the Romans, 
followed by the Moslems, and, in the time of 
Louis IX. and Napoleon, by the French. Great 
Britain has now gained a foothold, and serious 
conflicts may be expected. 



EGYPT 19 

CIVILIZATION 

RELIGION 

( I ) " Two religions existed side by side, the 
one held by the people, the other by the priests." 
The former was the old African fetichism, coarse 
and material, and it held that certain animals, as 
the apis and beetle, were divine. " The latter 
religion sought to account for the mysterious 
phenomena of nature, and explained the good and 
evil encountered everywhere by the opposition of 
two principles as Osiris, the representative of all 
beneficent influences, and Typhon the god of night 
and of evil days." (2) Accordingly, among the 
fundamental ideas of the religion of ancient Egypt 
were the doctrines of an absolute and eternal God, 
the immortality of the soul, the rehabilitation of 
bodies, and the sacredness of certain animals. (3) 
The results were respectively such writings as the 
Book of the Dead, and such customs as the judg- 
ment of the dead, the embalming of bodies for 
burial, and the worship of animals. 

LITERATURE 

(i) Side by side with arithmetic, geometry, 
astronomy, etc., which were highly developed for 
practical and scientific purposes, the priests em- 
bodied their religious ideals in a voluminous sacred 
literature, (2) the burden of which was ceremo- 
nial prescription, as in Ptahhotep's book for the 



20 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

dead. The language of ancient Egypt was ideo- 
graphic, and the characters are best known as hie- 
roglyphics, or priest sculptures. Out of this orig- 
inal form grew two others, the hieratic and the 
demotic, which must be carefully distinguished by 
history-students. (3) Through the inscriptions of 
the so-called Rosetta stone, found in 1799, we 
may now read the thoughts of ancient Egypt. 

ARCHITECTURE 

(i) The immortality ideal is conspicuously the 
motive idea in Egyptian architecture, as we see 
from its massiveness and the selection of rock mate- 
rials. (2) Among the best illustrations of this 
idea are the pyramids, obelisks, statues, temples, 
sepulchres, etc., all of which deserve careful study. 
(3) The remains and fate of these impressive 
architectural triumphs are exceedingly instructive 
and interesting. 

ARTS 

The Egyptians successfully cultivated many of 
the industrial arts, as well as mechanics, geometry, 
and astronomy. 

SOCIETY 

Originally Egypt had no caste system of society. 
By and by, however, we find a system something 
like that of India, but less rigid. The laws of an- 
cient Egypt were marvellously wise and just. 

References: (i) Myers; (2) Duruy. 



ASSYRIA 

THE NATIONS 

Three great empires, the Chaldean, the As- 
syrian, and the Babylonian, rose and fell in the 
Tigris-Euphrates valley. With the exception of 
the Turanian admixtures, they were Semites, like 
the Hebrews and Arabs, and their attainments at 
Babylon and Nineveh rivalled those of the Egyp- 
tians, whose contemporaries they were from most 
early times. 

POLITICAL HISTORY 

CHALDEA 

(i) Sargon, the first prominent Chaldean mon- 
arch, organized the peoples of the plains, founded 
cities, patronized literature, and carried on wars. 
About two thousand years before Christ, the Elam- 
ites plundered the Chaldean cities and subjugated 
the people. By and by Babylon became the leading 
city of Chaldea, but in 1300 B.C. the Assyrians con- 
quered the Chaldeans and ruled over them for six 
centuries. 

ASSYRIA 

The Assyrians, whose royal city was Nineveh, 
did not become very prominent until the eighth 



22 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

century before Christ. Among the landmarks of 
Assyrian history are the reigns of Sargon, Sen- 
nacherib, Sardanapalus, and Saracus. Sargon de- 
spoiled Samaria, defeated the Egyptians and their 
allies in a great battle, and erected a wonderful pal- 
ace. His son, Sennacherib, besieged Jerusalem, 
and spent his closing years in building canals and 
palaces. Sardanapalus chastised the enemies of his 
empire in swift campaigns, and then made sculp- 
tured records of his victories. He was a patron of 
art and literature. Saracus was the last of the long 
line of Assyrian kings. After many provincial re- 
bellions against him, the oppressor was finally over- 
thrown by his Babylonian general, Nabopolassar, 
assisted, as it appears, by the Medes, 606 B.C. 

BABYLONIA 

Nabopolassar founded Babylonia, acquiring 
large accessions of territory. His renowned son, 
Nebuchadnezzar, sacked Jerusatlem and carried its 
people captive to Babylon. He is best remembered 
as the builder of a city-wall, the Hanging Gardens 
of Babylon, and a great palace. The Babylonian 
empire came to an end with the reign of Nabona- 
dius and his associate, Belshazzar. In spite of 
wonderful defences, Babylon was captured by Cy- 
rus, the strong and ambitious sovereign of the 
Medes and Persians, 538 B.C. 



ASSYRIA 23 

CIVILIZATION 

RELIGION 

( I ) The commingling of Turanian and Semitic 
stocks produced a hybrid rehgion, known as Baal- 
worship. (2) Baal- worship consisted of Tura- 
nian Shamanism, or spirit-worship, and of Semitic 
Sabseanism, or star-worship. Besides numerous 
lesser and local deities, the perfected system recog- 
nized twelve primary Gods, at whose head stood 
II, or Ra. (3) Among the products of Baal-wor- 
ship may be mentioned magic, and the celebrated 
tower and pyramid temples, all of which deserve 
careful study. 

LITERATURE 

(i) Nature and religion conspired to produce 
the literature of the Tigris-Euphrates nations. 
(2) Among the noteworthy specimens are the 
Chaldean Genesis, the Chaldean Epic of Izdubar, 
and the Will of Sennacherib, all of which deserve 
our careful study. Clay tablet books, with cunei- 
form scripts, were collected into famous libraries, 
as at Erech, Babylon, and Nineveh. (3) Under 
the ruined palace mounds, such as the Koyunjik of 
Nineveh, well-preserved tablet books have been 
found, and, through the inscriptions on the Behis- 
tun rock, translations have become accessible. 

ARCHITECTURE 

(i) Government and religion, as elsewhere, 
produced palaces, monuments, and temples in the 



64 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Tigris- Euphrates valley. (2) Although stone 
was to be had in Assyria, the Assyrians, like the 
Chaldeans and Babylonians, used chiefly sun-dried 
bricks in the erection of their buildings. With the 
exception of the temples, even palaces were made 
only one story high, but the ornamentation was 
profuse and artistic. For important reasons the 
palaces were placed upon lofty artificial terraces, 
or platforms. (3) All that remains of palaces and 
temples are palace-mounds like the Koyunjik at 
Nineveh, the temple-mound, Birs Nimrud, and 
wall mounds. 

SOCIETY 

The people of the Tigris-Euphrates valley were 
religious, but cruel. The kings were absolute 
rulers, ambitious despots who stopped at nothing 
in the attainment of their ends. The only social 
distinctions were those of sovereign and subject; 
there was no such thing as castes. 

References: (i) Myers; (2) Duruy. 



THE HEBREWS 

ORIGIN 

Emigrating from Chaldea about 2000 B.C., a 
Semite, Abram (or Abraham), with his family, 
finally settled in Canaan, and thus became the 
father or founder of the Hebrew people. 

POLITICAL HISTORY 

EGYPT 

Famine arising, the Hebrews of the patriarch 
Jacob's time were settled in Goshen through the 
influence of his son Joseph at the Egyptian court 
of the Shepherd Kings, or Hyksos. They pros- 
pered greatly under the Hyksos, but were op- 
pressed and enslaved by the Pharaohs of the eigh- 
teenth and nineteenth dynasties. Moses delivered 
them from bondage in the year 1490 B.C. God, 
through Moses and forty years of training, formed 
his ransomed wanderers into the Hebrew nation. 

CANAAN 

Joshua, the successor of Moses, crossed the Jor- 
dan, captured Jericho, and divided the Promised 
Land among the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Then 
followed a period of uncertain national union, and 
it became necessary repeatedly for God to rescue 
the Chosen People through heroes, such as Gideon 
and Samuel, who also ruled or judged the people. 

25 



26 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Finally, after much urging by the Hebrews, God 
gave them King Saul. Then followed David, the 
warrior poet, and Solomon, each one ruling forty 
years. When Solomon died (975 B.C.), his son's 
arrogance caused the Ten Tribes of Israel to secede 
from the other Two Tribes, henceforth known as 
the Tribes of Judah. Samaria became the capital 
of Israel, and the rival of Jerusalem. 

EXILE AND DOWNFALL 

Idolatry caused the downfall of both kingdoms. 
Sargon carried the Ten Tribes into Assyria, where 
they were absorbed and lost. Nebuchadnezzar car- 
ried the Two Tribes to Babylon. In 538 B.C. 
Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon, allowed the cap- 
tive Jews to return to Jerusalem, where they main- 
tained themselves as a nation for six centuries 
against great odds. Since the overthrow of the 
city by the Roman Titus, 70 a.d., the Jews have 
been wanderers on the face of the whole earth. 

CIVILIZATION 

RELIGION 

(i) One God and the immortality of the soul 
have been the fundamental points in the religion 
of the Hebrews, and (2) for these points they 
have contended valiantly through all their wander- 
ings. (3) The moral system of the laws of Moses 
has become the basis of all civilizations, and is sur- 
passed only by that of Christ, to which it, as a 
school-master, leads us. 



THE HEBREWS 27 

LITERATURE 

'(i) The literature of the Hebrews is a direct 
product of their rehgion. (2) It consists of the 
Old Testament, and, growing out of it, the New 
Testament, together with the Apocrypha, the Tal- 
mud, and the writings of Josephus. (3) It goes 
without question that the Bible as literature has 
helped to mould the literature of all civilized lands, 
and that as a moral agency it is unsurpassed. 

SOCIETY 

( I ) As the Chosen People of God, the Hebrews 
were controlled in all their relations by the Mosaic 
laws. (2) Among the fundamental principles 
controlling the life of the Jewish people were jus- 
tice, equality, and purity. The law distinguished 
in favor of the poor. " It prohibited usury, en- 
joined alms, prescribed charity, even towards ani- 
mals, and was kindly to the stranger." (3) "In 
this society, the stranger was no longer an enemy, 
the slave was still a man, and woman took her 
seat worthily beside the head of the family, enjoy- 
ing the same respects." " Instead of the distinc- 
tion of castes, the Hebrews had equality of citizen- 
ship before God." " If their priesthood became 
hereditary, the priests possessed only the inheri- 
tance of poverty." For art, science, and industry 
the Jews did nothing. 

References: (i) Myers; (2) Duruy. 



THE PHOENICIANS 

Phoenicia, a strip of broken sea-coast lying 
between the Mediterranean and the ranges of 
Mount Lebanon, was, for many centuries, the 
home of a maritime and trading people of Semitic 
origin. 

POLITICAL HISTORY 

GOVERNMENT 

There never really was a Phoenician state, but 
" the various cities constituted a sort of confed- 
eracy, the petty states of which generally acknowl- 
edged the leadership, first of Sidon, and then that 
of Tyre." In her last centuries " Phoenicia was, for 
the most part, tributary to one or another of the 
great monarchies about her." The city of Tyre 
never recovered from Alexander's blow, 332 B.C. 

FOREIGN RELATIONS 

The Phoenicians were the furnishing agents of 
the nations of antiquity, bringing them men, work- 
ing-materials, ships, etc. Their services are insep- 
arably connected with Solomon's Temple, Assyrian 
palaces, the Hellespontine bridges of Xerxes, and 
the naval enterprises of both Persians and Egyp- 
tians. 
28 



THE PHOENICIANS 29 

CIVILIZATION 

COMMERCE 

( I ) " The lofty mountains that back the httle 
strip of shore seemed to shut them out from a 
career of conquest and to prohibit an extension of 
their land domains. At the same time the Medi- 
terranean in front invited them to maritime enter- 
prise." (2) They established trading-posts at 
many points all along the shores of the Mediterra- 
nean and Black Seas, and even upon the islands of 
these seas. They dealt chiefly in bronze articles 
and purple. (3) Colonies, and among them espe- 
cially Carthage, the great rival of ancient Rome, 
sprang up wherever the Phoenicians had estab- 
lished trading-posts. They introduced the alpha- 
bet, borrowed from Egypt, among all nations with 
which they traded. Many culture results accom- 
panied this introduction of letters. 

CHARACTER 

The Phoenicians cared little for religion, except 
as a means to the ends of commerce. The Moloch 
worship of this country was among the most re- 
volting practices of those times, its chief purpose 
being the destruction of home-love, so much in the 
way of sailors and colonists. The sciences, except 
arithmetic and navigation, were almost wholly 
neglected. Of their social relations, their virtues 
and vices, w^e know nothing. 

References: (i) Myers; (2) Rosenkranz. 



PERSIA 

PERSIANS 

An Aryan migration contemporaneous with that 
which produced the Hindoos, was the origin of the 
Medes and Persians, the former becoming some- 
what separate through non- Aryan admixtures. 

POLITICAL HISTORY 

In distinction from the ancestral ideal of China 
and India, that of the ancient Persians was the 
" state," represented by the king. 

KINGS 

(i) The founder of the Persian state was Cy- 
rus, the grandson of the Median Astyages, whom 
he conquered, 559 B.C. He conquered the Lydians, 
whose king, the renowned Croesus, had supported 
his brother-in-law, Astyages. Babylon fell into 
the hands of Cyrus, 538 b.c. He perished in a 
battle against the Scythians. (2) Cambyses, the 
son of Cyrus the Great, added Egypt to the domain 
of Persia. (3) A Magian usurper, Smerdis, was 
overthrown by the nobleman Darius, who became 
the greatest of Persian sovereigns. He conquered 
India, and governed his vast empire by means of 
satraps, or provincial governors. His invasions of 
Europe were failures, and in the year 490 B.C. he 
was badly defeated by the Greek Miltiades at Mar- 
30 ^ 



PERSIA 



31 



athon. (4) Darius dying soon after the battle of 
Marathon, his son Xerxes carried on the Grseco- 
Persian war, as it is called, defeating the Spartan 
Leonidas at Thermopylae (480 b.c.) and burning 
Athens. His forces, however, were defeated by 
Themistocles at Salamis, and by Pausanias at Pla- 
tsea. After the defeat of his fleet at Mycale, on 
his own coast, the war came to its close. ( 5 ) '' The 
power and supremacy of the Persian monarchy 
passed away with the reign of Xerxes. The last 
one hundred and forty years of the existence of the 
empire was a time of weakness and anarchy." The 
Macedonian Alexander finally overthrew Darius 
III., at Arbela, 334 B.C., thus ending the Persian 
empire. 

CIVILIZATION 

SOCIETY 

(i) The ''state" ideal was the basis of social 
divisions. (2) In effect, at least, the king of Per- 
sia was the state, except that he could not alter 
laws. He was advised by seven political princes, 
and by the Magi, or priests. The masses were sim- 
ply the means to ends in the state. Women were 
held in slavish subjection, but boys were highly 
esteemed, as we see from the training of Cyrus. 
(3) This '' state" system, like that of ancient 
Rome, produced a world empire. The simple hab- 
its of the early Persians, however, gave way to 
luxury and vice in the satrapal periods of the em- 



32 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

pire, until, in spite of its complex spy-system, Per- 
sia crumbled under its own weight. 

RELIGION 

(i) The renowned Zoroaster, who probably 
lived more than a thousand years before Christ, 
was the Moses of the Persians. (2) His religious 
doctrines are embodied in the Zend-Avesta, the 
Persian Bible. Zoroaster taught that Ormazd, the 
god of light, would eventually conquer Ahriman, 
the god of darkness and evil, but that man, whose 
soul is immortal, must enlist on the side of the 
good god in his conquests. (3) This religious 
system, something like the Jewish system, was 
of immense advantage to the morality and gov- 
ernment of Persia. The peculiar disposal of the 
Persian dead ought to be very interesting to 
students of history. 

ARTS 

(i) There was no room for the sciences in the 
" state" ideal of the Persians, and none for litera- 
ture except that of the A. vesta, now translated by 
the help of the Behistun inscriptions, nor did the 
religious ideal call for temples, since mountain- 
altars for animal sacrifice sufficed for the Parsees, 
or Fire- worshippers of Persia. (2) The " state" 
ideal, however, called for magnificent palaces and 
tombs, the best examples of which are (3) the 
marble remains at Persepolis and Pasargadse. 

References : (i) Myers ; (2) Duruy. 



THE GREEKS 

The geography and geographical relations of 
Greece are points of which history-students must 
make very sure, in order to understand the life, 
character, and history of the Greeks. 

POLITICAL HISTORY 

ORIGIN 

The Aryan migrations, which produced the Hin- 
doos and Persians, were followed by the Graeco- 
Italic waves. Thus came the Pelasgians, followed 
by the Hellenes, who gradually absorbed the Pelas- 
gians. There were four tribes of Hellenes, but the 
political history of Hellas — i.e., Greece and her 
colonies — is chiefly that of the lonians and the 
Dorians, whose opposite traits made them per- 
petual rivals. The primary elements of Greek cul- 
ture came to them through such Asiatic immi- 
grants as the legendary Cecrops, Cadmus, and 
Pelops. The mountains helped to divide the 
Greeks politically into city-states, best represented 
by Athens, the head of the lonians, and Sparta, 
the head of the Dorians. 

LEGENDS 

Such hero-legends as those of Hercules, the Ar- 
gonauts, and Troy, help us to understand the Greek 

3 33 



34 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

mind, and lead up to history proper, (i) The 
legend of Hercules and his twelve labors is a sun- 
myth, a Greek version of the epic of Izdubar; it 
reveals the Greek tendency to deify and worship 
heroes. (2) The legend of the Argonauts is a 
nature-myth, representing the history of a rain- 
cloud, and glorifying some successful maritime ad- 
ventures. (3) The siege of Troy, caused by the 
abduction of Queen Helen by Prince Paris, lasted 
ten years, the Greeks winning, 1184 B.C., through 
the stratagem of the wooden horse. Resting on 
facts, as we now know, the story is a legend only 
in its Homeric garb. In its Homeric form, the 
story is an eloquent portrayal of the Greek ideal of 
beauty, so dominant in Greek history, literature, 
and art. The pathetic description of the return of 
the Greek chieftains is particularly significant of 
the Greek social ideals. (4) The legend of the 
Dorian migration is remarkably interesting as a 
connecting link with true history. According to 
this legend, when the one hundred years of their 
exile were over the descendants of Hercules re- 
turned from the North, establishing themselves as 
masters in the Peloponnesus. The pre-historic 
migration itself is a fact, and the resulting unrest 
of Greece set into motion those migrations into 
Asia Minor, etc., which ultimately enlarged Greece 
into the greater Hellas of the Mediterranean coasts. 



THE GREEKS 35 

SPARTA 

The Dorian conquerors founded Sparta in La- 
conia. Henceforth they were known as the Spar- 
tans. The subjugated Achasans, who were allowed 
to retain possession of their lands, are known as 
the Perioeci. The slaves, or Helots, were the prop- 
erty of the state. The hated Spartans could main- 
tain their supremacy only at the sword's point. 
Accordingly, the famous Lycurgus of the ninth 
century B.C. planned a constitution which the Spar- 
tans finally adopted. Among other things he pro- 
vided for two kings, a senate of elders, and a 
popular assembly. His land and money regula- 
tions, together with those pertaining to public 
tables, and the education of the young Spartans, 
were certainly well adapted to the purposes of 
Sparta, as her wars and conquests prove; but Ly- 
curgus sacrificed mind for body and individuals 
for the state. As might have been expected, Sparta 
bequeathed nothing to posterity. 

ATHENS 

The population of Attica, the state of which 
Athens was the capital, besides containing non- 
Hellenic admixtures, was essentially Ionic in race. 
In contrast with that of Sparta, the site of Athens 
was quite conspicuous. Diversity of character 
made Athens the perpetual rival of Sparta. At 
first Athens, like Sparta, was ruled by kings, but 
after the patriotic self-sacrifice of Codrus, elective 



36 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

rulers called archons were substituted for heredi- 
tary kings. Thus the old Homeric monarchy had 
become an aristocratic oligarchy, and the condition 
of the masses became distressing. The revolution 
of Cylon followed, and by and by the people began 
to insist on written laws. The first constitution of 
Athens, accordingly, was framed by Draco, but, 
the condition of the poor growing worse and worse, 
the cruel laws of Draco had to be revised. It was 
done by the wise Solon, who favored the oppressed 
in various ways, and restored the ancient tribunal 
of Areopagus. Presently, however, his ambitious 
nephew, Pisistratus, seized the government. Thus 
began the admirable reign of this first Athenian 
usurper, or tyrant. The unfortunate reign of his 
sons ended in the expulsion of Hippias, 510 B.C. 
Through Clisthenes, who now espoused the cause 
of the people, Solon's democracy was restored, 
with Athenian citizenship for all the free inhabi- 
tants of Attica. The most characteristic of the 
innovations of Clisthenes was ostracism, which de- 
serves our careful attention. The attempt of the 
jealous Spartans to restore Hippias to power in 
Athens now helped directly to bring about the 
memorable Grseco-Persian war. 

GRA£CO-PERSIAN WAR 

( I ) The desire of Darius to punish Athens for 
supporting the Asiatic Greeks in an uprising 
against him caused the war. (2) The first expe- 



THE GREEKS 37 

dition was a failure. In 490 b.c. Miltiades de- 
feated the Persians so badly at Marathon that, 
after an attempt on Athens the next day, they re- 
turned to Asia. The fate of Miltiades is particu- 
larly pathetic. Themistocles, who foresaw the 
danger, prepared for another Persian invasion, and 
his . opponent, Aristides the just, was ostracized. 
Xerxes, who succeeded his father, made immense 
preparations, and, while Themistocles was trying 
to unite the jealous Greeks, he began his march. 
After rebuilding the Hellespontine bridges, he 
crossed the Hellespont with his ten thousand im- 
mortals, 'followed by an immense host, while his 
fleet passed through the canal of Cape Athos. At 
Thermopylae he finally defeated the brave Leon- 
idas, 480 B.C., and, marching southward, burned 
Athens. In accordance with the advice of the Del- 
phian oracle, Themistocles collected the soldiers 
of Attica into ships at Salamis, and, tricking the 
Persian fleet into a fight, he succeeded in winning 
a decisive victory. The battles of Platsea and 
Mycale followed in 479 B.C., and ended the war.* 
(3) As a result of the war, Athens was now su- 
preme in Greece. The walls of Athens were re- 
built at once, and, in order to maintain the suprem- 
acy of Athens, the naval policy of Themistocles, 
who was ostracized soon afterwards, was adopted. 



* It is interesting to find that the Greek Gelo defeated the 
Carthaginians at Himera on the battle-day of Salamis. 



38 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

CONFEDERACY OF DELOS 

( I ) "In order that they might be able to carry 
on the war more effectively against the Persians, 
the Ionian states of Asia Minor, the islands of the 
^gean, and some of the states in Greece proper, 
shortly after the battle of Platsea, formed them- 
selves into what is known as the Confederacy of 
Delos." For various reasons the alliance allowed 
Athens to assume the leadership, and Aristides be- 
came the first president of the league. (2) " The 
contributions assessed by Aristides upon the dif- 
ferent members of the confederation consisted of 
ships and their crews for the larger states, and of 
money payments for the smaller ones," the depot 
of supplies being the island of Delos. " Very soon 
the restraints which Athens imposed upon her allies 
became irksome, and they began to refuse, one 
after another, to pay the assessment in any form." 
As fast, however, as the confederates seceded they 
were pressed back by famous generals, like Cimon, 
son of Miltiades, until (3) the confederacy had 
virtually become an empire of Athens, enriching 
her beyond all comparison with other Greek cities. 

AGE OF PERICLES 

( I ) " Under the inspiration of Pericles, the 
Athenian state now entered upon the most brilliant 
period of her history." The " golden age" of 
Athens is often called the Periclean Age. (2) 
Pericles, a most able and eloquent statesman, fos- 



THE GREEKS 39 

tered the naval power of Athens, adorned Athens 
with pubhc buildings, and, in various ways, edu- 
cated his people in politics and morality. " Never 
before had there been such a union of the material 
and intellectual elements of civilization at the seat 
of empire." (3) But the Periclean system of pay- 
ing for the most common public services and grant- 
ing gratuities encouraged idleness and sapped the 
Athenian democracy of its virtues. In the mean 
time, Sparta looked upon the prosperity of Athens 
with a very jealous eye. 

PELOPONNESIAN WAR 

( I ) " The interference of Athens, on the side 
of the Corcyreans, in a quarrel between them and 
their mother city, Corinth," and other matters, in- 
duced jealous Sparta, the head of the Pelopon- 
nesus, to go to war with Athens. The antagonists 
were pretty equally matched. (2) An attack upon 
Platsea by the Thebans, 431 B.C., precipitated the 
war. Sparta at once invaded Attica. Pestilence 
followed in the wake of the siege of Athens. After 
the death of Pericles, demagogues, like Cleon, 
sorely mismanaged affairs. The cruel annihila- 
tions of Mytilene and Platasa were followed by the 
peace of Nicias, which was broken by the luckless 
expedition of the unprincipled Alcibiades. Finally, 
after the Spartan occupation of Decelea in Attica, 
and the capture of the Athenian fleet at ^gospo- 
tami by Lysander, the '' long walls" of Athens 



40 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

were levelled to the ground and Athens had lost 
her supremacy, 404 B.C. (3) "Sparta's power 
was now supreme." 

SUPREMACY OF SPARTA 

(i) The Peloponnesian war placed Sparta at 
the head of Greece. (2) She played the tyrant 
for about thirty years. It was during this time 
that the philosopher Socrates was condemned to 
death. To this era also belongs the expedition of 
the " Ten Thousand Greeks," with which every 
student should be familiar. (3) The oppressive 
measures of Sparta caused her downfall at the 
hands of the Theban Epaminondas. 

SUPREMACY OF THEBES 

( I ) Epaminondas, with his " sacred band" and 
heavy columns, defeated the Spartans at Leuctra, 
371 B.C., thus establishing Thebes as the head of 
Greece. (2) The nine years of Theban suprem- 
acy are memorable chiefly for the three brilliant 
campaigns of the great Epaminondas. (3) Finally, 
he won the battle of Mantinea, but was mortally 
wounded. " With him fell the hopes and power of 
Thebes." 

SUPREMACY OF MACEDONIA 

(i) The next "master of Greece" came from 
the North. Philip of Macedon, hostage pupil of 
Epaminondas at Thebes, won the favor of the Am- 



THE GREEKS 41 

phictyonic Council through his services against the 
Phocians; and, before Demosthenes could make 
the Greeks understand Philip's design against the 
liberties of Greece, he won the decisive battle of 
Chseronea, 338 B.C., with his " Macedonian Pha- 
lanx,'' thus making himself master of Greece. (2) 
" At a great council of the Grecian cities held at 
Corinth, Philip was chosen leader" of an expedi- 
tion against the Persians. " All Greece was astir 
with preparation." An assassin slew Philip at his 
daughter's wedding. His son Alexander suc- 
ceeded to his place and power, 336 B.C. After 
suppressing various revolts within his own do- 
mains, he crossed the Hellespont. Defeating the 
Persians at the Granicus and at Issus, he pushed 
on to Tyre, which he finally captured. After his 
visit to Egypt, where he founded Alexandria, he 
resumed his march towards the Persian capital. 
Having won the decisive battle of Arbela, 331 B.C., 
he sacked Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis, and then 
continued his marches. Returning from India, 
where he had captured the celebrated Porus, he 
established himself at Babylon, hoping to establish 
a world-empire. He died at the age of thirty-two, 
323 B.C. (3) Among the many results of Alexan- 
der's conquests must be mentioned the civilizing 
effects upon Asia and the degenerating effect upon 
Europe. After the celebrated battle of Ipsus, 301 
B.C., the vast empire of Alexander was divided be- 
tween his four contending generals, Ptolemy get- 



42 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

ting Egypt. Ptolemy established an empire with 
its seat at Alexandria, famous later on for its uni- 
versity, its light-house, and the Septuagint. Mace- 
donia and Greece finally became parts of the world- 
empire of ancient Rome, 146 b.c. Greece suffered 
much at the hands of the Turks after 1453 a.d., 
but succeeded in securing her independence in 
1828-29 through outside help. She has been at 
war with the Turks several times lately. 

CIVILIZATION 

Beauty was the motive idea in the civilization of 
ancient Greece. The results are the world's sur- 
prise even in modern times. 

RELIGION 

" Without at least some little knowledge of the 
religious ideas and institutions of the ancient 
Greeks, we should find very many passages of their 
history wholly unintelligible." The cosmography 
of the early Greeks is of course very defective. 

Deities, (i) The imaginative Greek mind, in 
its effort to explain natural phenomena, personi- 
fied both the forces of nature and the passions of 
man into gods and goddesses. (2) Six gods and 
as many goddesses constituted the Olympian Coun- 
cil, at whose head stood Zeus. Besides the great 
gods and goddesses were many subordinate deities, 
prominent among which were the muses, nymphs, 



THE GREEKS 43 

fates, furies, gorgons, etc. Students of literature 
cannot get along very well without mastering 
Greek mythology pretty thoroughly. (3) With 
such defective conceptions, we need not be sur- 
prised that the faith, reverence, and morality of 
the ancient Greeks were so superficial. 

Oracles. (i) The natural desire to commu- 
nicate with their divinities, produced institutions 
known as Oracles, the most famous of which were 
at Delphi and Dodona. (2) In these sacred places 
ambiguous answers by the priests became powerful 
prophecies and counsels, and the Greeks undertook 
nothing of importance without first consulting the 
Oracles. (3) In spite of ingenious obscurity and 
ambiguity the deceptive character of the oracles 
finally wrought their ruin. 

Sacred Games, (i) The Greeks, believing at 
first that the dead enjoyed festivals over their 
graves, and afterwards that such festivals, because 
they helped to beautify both body and mind, were 
pleasing to their gods and goddesses, instituted 
the renowned Olympian and other games. (2) 
The first Olympian game was held in yy(i B.C., and 
then every four years. The exercises consisted of 
athletic contests, with prizes for the victors. In 
the Pythian, Isthmian, and Nemean games intel- 
lectual contests became popular. (3) Accord- 
ingly, " for more than a thousand years these na- 
tional festivals exerted an immense influence upon 
the literary, social, and religious life of Hellas/' 



44 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

giving the whole world its inspiration in sculpture, 
architecture, poetry, etc. 

Amphictyonic Council. (i) "This was a 
league of twelve of the sub-tribes of Hellas, whose 
main object was the protection of the Temple of 
Apollo at Delphi.'' (2) "The so-called First 
Sacred War (600-590 B.C.) was a crusade of ten 
years carried on by the Amphictyons against the 
cities of Crissa and Cirrha for their robbery of 
the treasures of the Delphian temple." (3) " The 
spoils of the war were devoted to the establishment 
of musical contests in honor of the Delphian 
Apollo. Thus originated the renowned Pythian 
festivals, to which allusion has just been made." 

ARTS 

Imagination conspired with religion to develop 
the Greeks, especially the Athenians, into artists. 

Architecture. Pelasgian architecture deserves 
a passing notice. (i) The Greeks developed 
three styles of architecture. (2) The Doric 
style is best represented by its plain and stern 
pillar, the Ionic by its graceful volutes, and the 
Corinthian by its ornate capital. (3) Among the 
most renowned architectural triumphs of ancient 
Greece were the temples at Athens, Delphi, and 
Ephesus, the remains of which are still charm- 
ingly interesting. Nor ought we to forget the 
Theatre of Dionysus at Athens and the Mausoleum 
at Halicarnassus. 



THE GREEKS 45 

Sculpture, (i) The gymnastic art so highly 
developed through the inspiration of the Olympian 
games, produced the apparently forever inimitable 
Greek sculptors. (2) Phidias, easily the master of 
them all, is best known for his Athena and Zeus, 
Polycletus for his athlete " the Rule," Praxiteles 
for his Cnidian Aphrodite, and Lysippus for his 
heroes in bronze. Nor must we forget the Co- 
lossus at Rhodes and the Laocoon Group. (3) 
Famous museums have possession of these master- 
pieces. 

Painting, (i) In Greece nature herself would 
stir the heart to express ideals in colors. (2) 
The masterpiece of Polygnotus is his Trojan 
Polyxena. Zeuxis painted grapes, and his rival 
Parrhasius curtains. Apelles, the " Raphael of 
Antiquity," painted horses that deceived real 
horses. (3) " With the exception of antique vases 
and a few patches of mural decoration, all speci- 
mens of Greek painting have perished." 

LITERATURE 

" It was that same exquisite sense of fitness and 
proportion and beauty which made the Greek 
artists in marble that also made them artists in 
language." 

Poetry. (i) Combined with religion, the 
beauty ideal of Greece produced poetry. (2) 
Among the best hero poems are Homer's " Iliad" 
and Hesiod's '* Works and Days." Among the 



46 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

lyric writers were Sappho, the Lesbian nightin- 
gale, and Pindar, the Theban Eagle. All of these 
deserve careful study. (3) The Homeric poems 
" exerted an incalculable influence upon the literary 
and religious life of the Hellenic race," and are 
studied as standard classics in our own colleges. 

Drama, (i) Songs and dances instituted in 
honor of Dionysus produced both tragedy and 
comedy. (2) The masters in tragedy- writing 
were ^schylus, famous for his " Prometheus 
Bound," and his later rival Sophocles the beautiful, 
together with Euripides the human. Foremost 
among all writers of comedy must be placed Aris- 
tophanes. (3) Those masterpieces of Greek 
drama which are still in existence are studied as 
models and inspirations even to-day. 

History. (i) Herodotus was "the father of 
history." (2) Among other things, Herodotus 
wrote the history of the Persian wars, Thucydides 
that of the Peloponnesian war, and Xenophon that 
of the Ten Thousand Greeks. (3) All these mas- 
terpieces deserve our study. 

Oratory. ( i ) " The art of oratory among 
the Greeks was fostered and developed by the dem- 
ocratic character of their institutions." (2) The 
masters were the statesmen Themistocles and Peri- 
cles, together with the inimitable Demosthenes and 
his rival .^schines. (3) " Of all human produc- 
tions," the orations of Demosthenes " present to 



THE GREEKS 47 

us the models which approach the nearest to per- 
fection." 

ALEXANDRIAN AGE 

Special interest attaches to the famous Septua- 
gint of Alexandria, and Plutarch's equally famous 
" Parallel Lives." 

PHILOSOPHY 

(i) The attempt to explain the phenomena of 
nature and mind systematically produced philoso- 
phers, or thinkers, in ancient Greece. (2) Among 
those who deserve our special attention is Py- 
thagoras, the great teacher at Crotona. We ought 
also to make the acquaintance of the brilliant but 
shallow sophists. Socrates, the renowned critic 
of the sophists, is the Greek philosopher pre-emi- 
nent. After him come the founders of famous 
schools, — Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus. Nor 
ought we to forget Pyrrho, Philo, Hypatia, Euclid, 
Archimedes, and Claudius Ptolemy. (3) The 
ideals of the Greek philosophers and thinkers have, 
of course, been modified by modern science, but in 
the main they constitute the basis and point of de- 
parture for all the systems of thought in all ages. 

EDUCATION 

The ideals of Spartan and Athenian civilization 
produced opposite systems of education which had 
the most diverse world-results. 



48 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

CONCLUSION 

The student of general history should notice 
the peculiar position of woman in Greece, and he 
should have some idea- of Greek amusements, occu- 
pations, and slavery. 

References: (i) Myers; (2) Duruy. 



THE ROMANS 

The student of Roman history should begin 
with a careful geographical comparison between 
Italy and Greece. The geographical distribution 
of the early inhabitants of Italy is also desirable. 

POLITICAL HISTORY 

" Most important of all the Italian peoples were 
the Latins, who dwelt in Latium, between the Tiber 
and the Liris. These people, like all the Italians, 
were near kindred of the Greeks, and brought with 
them into Italy those same customs, manners, be- 
liefs, and institutions which we have seen to have 
been the common possession of the various 
branches of the Aryan household." 

ROME 

The first important Latin city was Alba Longa. 
In 753 B.C., so far as we know, the new city of 
Rome was founded on the Tiber, as an outpost 
against the Etruscans. For several centuries 
Rome, with her social division into patricians, ple- 
beians, etc., was governed by kings, reinforced by 
a senate and a popular assembly. " The legends 
of Rome tell of the reign of seven kings, — Romu- 
lus, the founder of Rome; Numa, the law-giver; 
Tullus Hostilius and Ancus Marcius, conquerors 

4 49 



50 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

both; Tarquinius Priscus, the great builder; Ser- 
vius TuHius, the reorganizer of the government 
and second founder of the state; and Tarquinius 
Superbus, the haughty tyrant, whose oppressions 
led to the abolition by the people of the office of 
king/' The growth of Rome under the Tarquins, 
and the various material and constitutional im- 
provements which they made, deserve attention. 
In 509 B.C. the people drove Tarquinius Superbus 
into exile, because, as the legend runs, he was a 
monstrous tyrant. 

EARLY REPUBLIC 

In the change of government attending the ex- 
pulsion of Tarquinius Superbus Rome became a 
republic, with two patrician magistrates, called 
consuls. " In public each consul was attended by 
twelve servants, called lictors, each of which bore 
an axe bound in a bundle of rods (fasces), the 
symbols of the authority of 'the consul to flog and 
to put to death." " In time of great public danger 
the consuls were superseded by a special officer 
called a dictator." (See Cincinnatus. ) 

SECESSION OF THE PLEBEIANS 

(i) The political revolution which established 
the republic produced revolts, and troubles with- 
out brought trouble within. " The poor plebeians, 
to begin with, fell into debt to the wealthy class, — 
for the Roman soldier went to war at his own 



THE ROMANS 51 

charge, and payment was exacted with heartless 
severity." Their condition becoming intolerable, 
they marched away to found a new city. Redress 
of grievances and the granting of tribunes, or rep- 
resentatives, brought them back. The story of 
Coriolanus shows what power the plebeian tribunes 
had in this early republic of Rome. (2) "In all 
struggles of the people against the tyranny of the 
ruling class, the demand for written laws is one 
of the first measures taken by the people for the 
protection of their persons and property. The 
same thing now took place at Rome." A com- 
mittee of ten men, called decemvirs, drew up a 
code of laws, known as the " Laws of the Twelve 
Tables." (3) While engaged on this code of 
laws the decemvirs also administered the govern- 
ment, thus superseding both consuls and tribunes, 
but when, in the second year of their labors, they 
began to play the tyrant the plebeians again 
seceded to Mons Sacer. Through the contention 
which followed the plebeians secured military tri- 
bunes, a compromise which brought them back to 
Rome. In the year 351 B.C. the plebeians also 
secured the office of censor. (4) In 390 B.C., six 
years after the significant siege and capture of the 
rival Etruscan city, Veii, the Gauls sacked Rome. 
Tradition tells how Manlius, who was afterwards 
condemned to death for alleged treason, saved 
Rome's citadel. The important thing in this con- 
nection is that the plebeians, through the conten- 



52 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

tions that followed the sack of Rome, finally, in 
367 B.C., through the efforts of Licinius, a tribune, 
obtained political equality with the patricians. 
Besides providing against oppressive usury, the 
Licinian laws gave the plebeians one of the two 
consuls, a Sibylline priest, and land rights. 

WAR OF PYRRHUS 

After the Samnite wars, of which the student 

should know at least something, the next important 

thing in the history of the republic of Rome is the 

conquest of lower Italy, at that time in the hands 

of the Greeks. The city of Tarentum, provoking 

Rome into war, sent for Pyrrhus, the cousin of 

Alexander the Great and King of Epirus. His 

battles and final defeat are thrillingly interesting. 

Thus it was that Rome finally became mistress of 

all Italy. 

THE PUNIC WARS 

(i) With the Romans, as with the Persians, 
the supreme end in view was the " state," — its 
enlargement by war and its government under law. 
Hardly, therefore, had Rome become the mistress 
of all Italy when she began to covet Sicily, then 
occupied on the east by Greeks, and elsewhere by 
Phoenician Carthaginians. On the pretext of help- 
ing some friends, a Roman army was landed on 
the island. Thus began the First Punic War. 
(2) Although Carthage, well governed and rich 
in resources, made a desperate effort, in conjunc- 



THE ROMANS 53 

tion with their old enemies, the Greeks, to save 
Sicily, she was no match for Rome in this first 
onset. After their victories on the island, the Ro- 
mans built a fleet (260 B.C.), defeated the Cartha- 
ginians at Mylse, and, under Regulus, sailed for 
Carthage. Regulus was defeated, but advised 
Rome to continue the war. After the loss of two 
more fleets, the Romans won a decisive victory 
over Admiral Hanno, near the ^gatian islands. 
(3) Thus ended the first of three struggles be- 
tween Rome and Carthage for world-empire, the 
former, besides other advantages, gaining Sicily, 
her first foreign province. 

Rome settled the affairs of Sicily, added Sar- 
dinia and Corsica, punished the lUyrian corsairs, 
and, almost annihilating an army of Gauls at Tela- 
mon, " extended their authority to the foot-hills 
of the Alps." In spite of the calamity of their 
defeat and the " Truceless War," the Carthagin- 
ians, through the genius of Hamilcar Barcas, the 
father of the still more famous Hannibal, estab- 
lished an empire in Spain. Meanwhile, both 
parties were eager to renew the contest, (i) 
Hannibal attacked Saguntum, a city on the East 
coast of Spain but under Roman protection. The 
demands of Rome were refused. Thus began the 
Second Punic War. (2) Hannibal crossed the 
Alps, defeated the Romans in famous battles, as 
at the river Trebia, lake Trasimenus, and, after 
much delay on the part of the Roman Fabius, at 



54 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Cannae. The leader of the Numidian cavalry, Ma- 
harbal, wanted to capture Rome, but Hannibal hes- 
itated and wintered in Capua. After punishing 
Syracuse and Capua for aiding Carthage, and de- 
feating Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal at the Me- 
taurus, the Romans sent Scipio into Africa. Han- 
nibal, who, in spite of great odds against him, had 
kept his enemies at bay in rocky Bruttium, was 
now recalled to save Carthage. The armies met 
at Zama, and Hannibal lost the battle. Thus 
ended the war, and thus began the end of Han- 
nibal. (3) One of the conditions of peace was 
that Carthage should " not engage in any war 
without the consent of Rome.'' 

The battles of Cynoscephalae and Pydna gave 
the Romans control of Macedonia. Through their 
victories at Magnesia they gained Asia Minor. 
The destruction of Corinth ended the conflict with 
Greece, 146 b.c. (i) In the mean time, Carthage, 
in violation of her treaty with Rome, had been pro- 
voked into war with Masinnissa, King of Numidia. 
Cato, who had been sent to Carthage to look into 
these quarrels, seeing that Rome could never hope 
to be the undisturbed mistress of the Mediterra- 
nean and her shores so long as Carthage existed, 
urgently advised the destruction of the city. (2) 
After shameful perfidy on the part of Rome, 
another Scipio was sent to destroy Carthage. He 
succeeded (146 b.c.) in spite of almost super- 
human defences. Thus ended the Punic wars, and, 



THE ROMANS 55 

after the siege of Numantia, in Spain, Rome was 

finally " mistress of all the lands that touch the 

sea." 

RESULTS OF WARS OF CONQUESTS 

" We shall here learn that wars for spoils and 
dominion are in the end more ruinous, if possible, 
to the conqueror than to the conquered." 

Servile Wars in Sicily, (i) Rome usually 
sold her war-captives into servitude. The condi- 
tions of the slaves in Sicily were particularly hard. 
Therefore they revolted. (2) The insurrection 
was one of large proportions, and lasted for three 
years, when (3) peace was restored. A similar 
w^ar broke out some years later, with similar 
results. 

Public Lands. (i) "Upon the subjugation 
of a state Rome never left to the conquered people 
more than two-thirds of their lands." " The land 
appropriated was disposed of at public sale, leased 
at low rentals, allotted to discharged soldiers, or 
allowed to lie unused." " In various ways the 
greater part of the public lands had fallen into the 
hands of the wealthy." "Through the working 
of the public land system, the Roman people had 
become divided into two great classes." (2) 
Many measures were attempted in the interest of 
relief. " The most noted champions of the cause 
of the poorer classes against the rich and powerful 
were Tiberius and Caius Gracchi." (3) Tiberius 
" secured the passage of a law for the redistribu- 



56 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

tion of the public lands, which gave some relief." 
The part which he took in resulting election quar- 
rels cost him his life. Caius " secured the passage 
of grain laws, which provided that grain should 
be sold to the poor from public granaries at half 
its value or less. This was a very unwise and per- 
nicious measure." " Caius proposed other meas- 
ures in the interest of the people," and, in the col- 
lision with the Optimates which followed, rather 
than be killed, he " sought death by a friendly 
sword." The people ever regarded the Gracchi 
as martyrs to their cause, and their memory was 
preserved by statues in the public square. To Cor- 
nelia, their mother, a monument was erected, sim- 
ply bearing' the inscription, '' The Mother of the 
Gracchi." 

Jugurtha. (i) "After the death of the 
Gracchi, Italy again fell into the hands of a few 
over-rich land-owners." (2) Roman virtue and 
integrity had declined since Fabricius indignantly 
refused the gold of Pyrrhus. The story of Jugur- 
tha. King of Numidia, illustrates the depth to 
which Rome had sunk in venality. (3) It may be 
a satisfaction to know that after his capture by 
the consul Marius, he finally perished in the Mam- 
ertine dungeon. 

Cimbri and Teutones. ( i ) " The Teutones 
and Cimbri, the vanguard of that great German 
migration which was destined to change the face 
and history of Europe," were coming across the 



THE ROMANS 57 

Alps to seek new homes. (2) " Marius, the con- 
queror of Jugurtha, was looked to by all as the 
only man who could save the state in this crisis." 
(3) In a terrible battle near Marseilles the Teu- 
tones were almost annihilated, and a similar fate 
overtook the Cimbri almost immediately at Ver- 
cellae. Marius had become the " Saviour of his 
Country." 

Social War. ( i ) The barbarian invasion was 
followed by a social quarrel, sometimes called 
the Marsic war. It was a struggle of the Italian 
allies for Roman citizenship. (2) The Italians 
flew to arms, determined to establish a rival state. 
" A tov/n called Corfinium, among the Apennines, 
was chosen as the capital of the new republic, and 
its name changed to Italica. Thus, in a single 
day, almost all Italy south of the Rubicon was lost 
to Rome." Aristocrats and democrats hushed 
their quarrels and fought side by side for the en- 
dangered life of the republic. The war lasted three 
years. (3) Finally, the right of suffrage was 
offered " to all Italians who should lay down their 
arms within sixty days." Thus virtually ended a 
most disastrous war. 

Marius and Sulla. (i) "The Social War 
was not yet ended when a formidable enemy ap- 
peared in the East. Mithridates the Great, King 
of Pontus, taking advantage of the distracted con- 
dition of the republic, had encroached upon the 
Roman provinces in Asia Minor, and had caused 



58 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

a general massacre of the Italian traders and resi- 
dents in that country." (2) After a civil struggle 
with the famous Marius, his rival in the struggle 
was sent to punish Mithridates. " After driving 
the army of Mithridates out of Greece, Sulla 
crossed the Hellespont, and forced the king to sue 
for peace." (3) In the mean time, however, Ma- 
rius, who had returned from exile, had filled Rome 
with the blood of Sulla's party. Soon after the 
death of Marius from dissipation Sulla returned, 
and the most horrible proscriptions followed. 
Among the Marian party spared by Sulla was 
Julius Caesar, then a young man of eighteen years 
of age. We shall hear more of him by and by. 
" After enjoying the unlimited power of an Asiatic 
despot for three years, he [Sulla] suddenly re- 
signed the dictatorship, and retired to his villa at 
Puteoli, where he gave himself up to the grossest 
of dissipations." He died the following year. 

Gladiators. While Pompey, " a rising young 
leader of the oligarchy, upon whom the title of 
Great had already been conferred as a reward for 
crushing the Marian party in Sicily and Africa, 
was sent into Spain to perform a similar service 
there, a new danger broke out in the midst of 
Italy." ( I ) " Capua was a sort of training school, 
from which skilled fighters were hired out for pub- 
lic or private entertainments. In this seminary 
was a Thracian slave, known by the name of Spar- 
tacus, who incited his companions to revolt." (2) 



THE ROMANS 59 

Collecting in great numbers, they cut Roman 
armies to pieces, and defied Rome for about three 
years. Finally, Spartacus himself was slain, and 
the insurgents were crushed. (3) The terrible 
punishments that followed, warned Roman slaves 
against striking for freedom. 

Pirates. After the prosecution of the corrupt 
Verres by " Cicero, the brilliant orator, who was 
at this time just rising into prominence at Rome," 
Rome had to deal with the Pirates of the Medi- 
terranean, (i) Various causes conspired to fill 
the sea with pirates. (2) "They formed a float- 
ing empire, which Michelet calls a wandering Car- 
thage, which no one knew where to seize, and 
which floated from Spain to Asia." " These buc- 
caneers, the vikings of the South, made descents 
upon the coast everywhere, plundered villas and 
temples, attacked and captured cities, and sold the 
inhabitants as slaves in the various slave-markets 
of the world. At last the grain-ships of Sicily and 
Africa were intercepted," and Rome began to stir 
herself. (3) Pompey, the conqueror of Spain, 
cleared the pirates from the seas in about ninety 
days, and thus not only acquired high honors for 
himself but served Rome well. 

Mithridates. ( i ) "In the very year that 
Pompey suppressed the pirates, he was called upon 
to undertake a more difficult task." " Mithridates 
the Great, led on by his ambition and encouraged 
by the discontent created throughout the Eastern 



6o GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

provinces by Roman rapacity and misrule was 
again in arms against Rome." (2) Almost all 
Asia Minor was in revolt. (3) Pompey defeated 
Mithridates in Armenia. After vain efforts to 
raise a new army against Rome, Mithridates, 
moved by the revolt of his own son, committed sui- 
cide. One of Rome's most formidable enemies was 
out of the way. Pompey returned to Rome in 
great triumph. 

FIRST ROMAN TRIUMVIRATE 

( I ) The conspiracy of Cataline, a ruined spend- 
thrift, reveals the state of the republic. The gov- 
ernment was saved by Cicero. In the meantime, 
however, the ambition of the three most famous 
Romans produced a coalition known as the First 
Triumvirate. (2) Julius Csesar, the soul of the 
conspiracy, secured the consulship through the aid 
of his colleagues, the rich Crassus and the popular 
Pompey. While Caesar and Pompey were bidding 
for the favor of the people, Crassus was slain in 
Parthia. When, through Pompey' s influence, the 
Senate required Caesar to " resign his ofifice and 
disband his Gallic legions by a stated day," he 
crossed the Rubicon, and Pompey fled to Greece. 
After pacifying Italy Caesar followed Pompey and 
defeated him at Pharsalus in Thessaly. Following 
the fleeing Pompey to Egypt, where Pompey was 
assassinated, Caesar secured the throne of Egypt 
to the beautiful Cleopatra. Hearing of the revolt 



THE ROMANS 6i 

of Pharnaces in Asia Minor, he hastened thither 
and defeated him at Zela. After returning to 
Rome, Csesar had to go to Africa, where he de- 
feated the friends of the old repubHc in the great 
battle of Thapsus. (3) He was now the undis- 
puted master of the Roman world. Great as a 
general, Csesar was even greater as a statesman. 
But the friends of the old republic, together with 
his bitter personal enemies, led by Brutus and Cas- 
sius, murdered him on the 15th day of March, 44 
B.C. Thus ended the First Triumvirate. 



SECOND ROMAN TRIUMVIRATE 

(i) After the funeral of Csesar, in which his 
eloquent friend Mark Antony figured so promi- 
nently, ambition produced a second triumvirate. 
Its immediate causes were the pretensions of An- 
tony and the ambitions of " Caius Octavius, the 
grand-nephew of Julius Caesar, and the one whom 
he had named in his will as his heir and successor." 
After several indecisive battles, Octavius compro- 
mised with Antony and Lepidus, thus forming a 
second triumvirate, the conditions of which were 
simply infamous. The great orator Cicero was 
one of the victims. (2) The first task of the tri- 
umvirate was to meet the army of Brutus and 
Cassius, who still posed as friends of the old re- 
public. The hostile armies met at Philippi in 
Thrace. " In two successive engagements the new 
levies of the liberators were cut to pieces, and both 



62 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Brutus and Cassius, believing the cause of the peo- 
ple forever lost, committed suicide." " After va- 
rious redistributions of the provinces, Lepidus was 
at length expelled from the triumvirate, and then 
again the Roman world, as in the times of Caesar 
and Pompey, was in the hands of two masters, — 
Antony in the East and Octavius in the West." 
" After the battle of Philippi, Antony summoned 
Cleopatra, the fair queen of Egypt, to meet him at 
Tarsus, there to give an account to him for the aid 
she had rendered the liberators." Enslaved by her 
enchantments, and worried by the Parthians, he 
hastened to Egypt to revel in the courts of Cleo- 
patra. Here he plotted against Rome. The mat- 
ter was finally settled by the great sea-fight just 
off the promontory of Actium, on the Grecian 
coast, 31 B.C. Octavius won, and . Cleopatra^ fol- 
lowed by Antony, fled into Egypt, where both 
ended their own lives. Thus ended the Second 
Triumvirate. (3) Octavius became the second 
master of the Roman world. 

ROMAN EMPIRE 

" The hundred years of strife which ended with 
the battle of Actium left the Roman republic, ex- 
hausted and helpless, in the hands of one wise and 
strong enough to remould its crumbling fragments 
in such a manner that the state, which seemed 
ready to fall to pieces, might prolong its existence 
for another five hundred years." 



THE ROMANS 63 

Augustus. Octavius, the second of the so- 
called " Twelve Caesars," surnamed '' Augustus," 
because of the grandeur of his reign, established 
" a monarchy in fact, but a republic in form." 
" Never did a people seem more content with the 
shadow after the loss of the substance." ' The 
domains over which Augustus held sway were im- 
perial in magnitude." " Octavius was the first to 
moderate the ambition of the Romans, and to coun- 
sel them not to attempt to conquer any more of 
the world, but rather to devote their energies to the 
work of consolidating the domains already ac- 
quired. He saw the dangers that would attend 
any further extension of the boundaries of the 
state." Reigning forty-four years, from 31 B.C. 
to 14 A.D., he was a great patron of literature 
and art. This was the age of Maecenas, Virgil, 
Horace, and Ovid. As a rule, the reign of Augus- 
tus was one of peace, but his latter years were 
clouded with sorrows, the most important one 
being the loss of his legions in Germany, where 
the great Arminius had annihilated Varus and his 
Roman army. To the German race this victory 
over the Romans was of immeasurable importance. 
One of the many institutions of Augustus was the 
creation of the Praetorian Guard, a sort of body- 
guard for the emperor. We shall hear of this body 
again. 

Tiberius. Tiberius, a stepson of Augustus, suc- 
ceeded to an unlimited sovereignty. His reign 



64 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

was generally successful, but his private life, espe- 
cially that portion which he spent on the island of 
Capri, was a blot on humanity. The infamous 
Sejanus ruled Rome for Tiberius. 

Cali£[ula. Caligula, a nephew of Tiberius, 
began well, but his reign of four years was a 
career of insane vices and cruelties. 

Claudius. Claudius, the grandson of Tibe- 
rius, conquered the Britons under Caractacus and 
founded many colonies in the southern part of 
England. Among the many improvements for 
which he is noted must be named the Portus Ro- 
manus, a magnificent harbor, and the Claudian 
aqueduct, bringing water to the city from a dis- 
tance of forty-five miles. He was finally poisoned 
by his wife Agrippina, to make her son Nero em- 
peror. 

Nero. For five years Nero, the son of the 
wicked Agrippina, " ruled with moderation and 
equity," but, breaking away from the guidance of 
his tutor, the famous Seneca, he plunged into in- 
credible enormities, including the murder of his 
mother, wife, and Seneca. In order to remove the 
suspicion from himself he blamed the Christians 
for the great fire which laid more than half of 
Rome in ashes. An immense palace which Nero 
built upon the burnt region is known as the 
" Golden House." The history student ought to 
read " Quo Vadis" to get a picturesque description 
of Nero's times. 



THE ROMANS 65 

Galba. A revolt of the Praetorian Guard at 
Rome was Galba's stepping-stone to the throne, 
but breaking faith with them cost him both his 
life and his throne. 

Otho. Coming to the throne by conspiracy 
against Galba, Otho, in turn, was overthrown by 
the generals of Vitellius. 

Vitellius. Vitellius, a favorite of Tiberius, 
Caligula, Claudius, and Nero, like his two prede- 
cessors, gained and lost his throne through army 
revolts. 

Vespasian. Having hurled Vitellius from his 
throne, the soldiers of Vespasian made their old 
and beloved commander emperor. His son Titus 
captured Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish tem- 
ple. Agricola, a general of Vespasian, extended 
the Roman empire to Scotland. Besides other im- 
portant undertakings, Vespasian began the erec- 
tion of the Roman Colosseum. 

Titus. Vespasian was followed by his noble 
son Titus, the " Delight of Mankind." He com- 
pleted the Colosseum, an immense amphitheatre. 
A calamitous fire and the 'destructive eruption 
of Vesuvius marred the otherwise prosperous, 
though brief, reign of Titus. 

Domitian. Domitian, the brother of Titus, 
persecuted both the Christians and the Jews. His 
reign was " one succession of extravagances, tyr- 
annies, confiscations, and murders." " The last of 
the twelve Caesars perished in his own palace, 

5 



66 GENEEAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

and by the hands of members of his own house- 
hold." 

Nerva. The first of the " Five Good Emper- 
ors," Nerva, was elected by the Senate. His reign 
of sixteen months, like that of four successors, was 
wise and beneficent. 

Trajan. Trajan was a native of Spain and a 
soldier by profession. " To Trajan belongs the 
distinction of extending the boundaries of the em- 
pire to the most distant points to which Roman 
ambition and prowess were ever able to push 
them." A tall marble shaft which he erected cele- 
brates his victories and honors his artistic tastes. 
He was also a patron of literature. "Juvenal, 
Plutarch, and the younger Pliny wrote under his 
patronage." " Because the Christians," whose 
spread was very rapid at this time, " steadily re- 
fused to sacrifice to the Roman gods, he ordered 
many to be put to death." All things considered, 
" his reign was one of the most prosperous and 
fortunate that had yet befallen the lot of the 
Roman people." 

Hadrian. " Hadrian, a kinsman of Trajan, 
succeeded him in the imperial office." " He gave 
up the territory conquered by Trajan in the East, 
and made the Euphrates once more the boundary 
of the empire in that quarter." " More than fif- 
teen years of his reign were spent by Hadrian in 
making tours of inspection through all the dif- 
ferent provinces of the empire." The Jews, who 



THE ROMANS 67 

had revolted, were terribly punished by Hadrian. 
" An immense structure surmounted by a gilded 
dome," and known as Hadrian's Mausoleum, is 
one of this princely builder's splendid architectural 
achievements. 

Aurelius Pius. The adopted son of Hadrian 
" gave the Roman empire an administration sin- 
gularly pure and parental." The reign of this first 
of the two Antonines was one of profound peace. 

Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius, the 
adopted son of Aurelius Pius, was a Stoic philoso- 
pher. " His ' Meditations' breathe the tenderest 
sentiments of devotion and benevolence, and make 
the nearest approach to the spirit of Christianity 
of all the writings of Pagan antiquity." He loved 
peace, but revolts forced him to spend most of his 
latter years in camp. Returning from a victory 
over the revolting Parthians, his soldiers brought 
with them the Asiatic plague. The Christians of 
the Roman empire were blamed for this plague. 
A fearful persecution was the result. Among the 
famous victims were Justyn Martyr and Polycarp. 
In the midst of pestilence and persecution, the 
Northern barbarians began to pour impetuously 
over the Roman frontiers. For many years Aure- 
lius strove to drive them back, and, though he suc- 
ceeded in checking their inroads, he could not avert 
the final overthrow of Rome. 

Commodus. Commodus, the son of Aurelius, 
was a " most unworthy successor. He ruled with 



6S GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

fairness and lenity for a few years, when an un- 
successful conspiracy against his life seemed sud- 
denly to kindle all the slumbering passions of a 
Nero." 

Caracalla. For nearly a century after the 
death of Commodus (from 192 to 284 a.d.) the 
emperors were elected by the army, and hence the 
rulers for this period have been called the " Bar- 
rack Emperors." The character of the period is 
revealed by the fact that of the twenty-five em- 
perors who mounted the throne during this time, 
all except four came to their deaths by violence. 
" Civil war, pestilence, bankruptcy, were all brood- 
ing over the empire. The soldiers had forgotten 
how to fight, the rulers how to govern. On every 
side the barbarians were breaking into the empire 
to rob, to murder, and to burn." Didius Julianus 
was the first of the Barrack Emperors. He bought 
the throne from the Praetorian Guard for about 
twelve million dollars. Septimius Severus came 
next. His son, Caracalla, who followed, was a 
monster. The one political act of importance of 
his reign was the bestowal of citizenship upon all 
the free inhabitants of the empire. This act of 
Caracalla was prompted by the desire to collect 
certain special taxes, but it made the entire popula- 
tion of the empire Roman, at least in name and 
nominal privilege. 

Aurelian. An age of weakness, known as 
the '' Age of the Thirty Tyrants," was redeemed 



THE ROMANS 69 

somewhat from its shadows by five good emperors, 
the second of which was Aurelian. This emperor 
is best remembered for his capture of the beautiful 
Zenobia, queen of Palmyra, a city occupying an 
oasis in the midst of the Syrian desert. The story 
is particularly interesting. 

Diocletian. " The reign of Diocletian makes 
an important era in Roman history. In order to 
divide the numerous and increasing cares of his 
distracted empire, he chose an associate emperor, 
with an assistant for himself and one for his co- 
sovereign." '' Thus there were two Augusti and 
two Caesars." Diocletian himself lived at Nico- 
media in Asia Minor, the other Augustus at Milan 
in Italy. The most serious drawback of this sys- 
tem of government was the necessity of heavy 
taxes. " It was during this reign that the tenth 
— the last and severest — of the persecutions of the 
church took place." 

Constantine the Great. The Roman army 
in Britain proclaimed Constantine emperor, 306 
A.D. He was the first Christian emperor, best re- 
membered in connection with the famous Nicene 
Council, 325 A.D. The ungracious conduct of the 
people of Rome, among other reasons, induced 
him to make Byzantium on the Bosphorus his 
capital. The name was changed to Constanti- 
nople. 

Julian the Apostate. After the brief reign 
of Constantine's son Constantius, a cousin of the 



70 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

latter, Julian by name, became the emperor. He 
is called the " Apostate," because he abandoned 
Christianity. A renewal of the Neronian and Dio- 
cletian persecutions had, however, become impossi- 
ble. " Julian's weapons were sophistry and ridi- 
cule." " The disabilities under which Julian had 
placed the Christians were removed by his suc- 
cessor Jovian." 

Valens. Jovian's successor was Valentinian, 
the commander of his imperial guard. He ap- 
pointed his brother Valens as his associate, the 
former fixing his capital at Milan, where he was 
soon succeeded by Gratian, his son. In 2i1^ a.d., 
the first year of Gratian's accession, " an event of 
the greatest importance occurred in the East." It 
was the crossing of the Danube by the Visigoths, 
Valens giving them permission on certain condi- 
tions. Shortly after this imprudent permission of 
Valens the Ostrogoths forced their way across and 
slew him in battle, but Theodosius, the great gen- 
eral whom Gratian had sent to help Valens, con- 
quered and settled the Goths in Asia Minor and 
Thrace. 

BARBARIAN INVASIONS 

The last days of the empire in the West had 
come. " Only a few years had elapsed after the 
death of the great Theodosius before the barba- 
rians were trooping in vast hordes through all the 
regions of the West." (i) Alaric, the Visigoth, 
came first. Stilicho, the renowned general of Ho- 



THE ROMANS 71 

norius, defeated him and forced him beyond the 
Alps. Radagaisus came next, but he, too, was de- 
feated by the mighty Stihcho. A massacre of the 
Gothic mercenaries in the Roman army brought 
Alaric across the Alps to avenge the fate of his 
kindred. Honorius, in the mean time, had caused 
Stihcho to be assassinated. There was no one to 
stop Alaric now. He sacked Rome, and then led 
his soldiers southward on a plundering tour. 
Death overtaking him, his followers returned 
northward, finally setting up the kingdom of the 
Visigoths in Gaul and Spain. (2) Attila, the 
Hun, was the next barbaric invader of Italy. 
After working great havoc, this '' Scourge of God'* 
was finally defeated upon the plains of Chalons, 
in Gaul. Attila succeeded in escaping across the 
Rhine. The year after his defeat he crossed the 
Alps again, and, after burning or plundering all 
the important cities of Northern Italy, he threat- 
ened Rome. It w^as saved by Pope Leo the Great. 
Crossing the Danube, and dying soon afterwards, 
" his followers gradually withdrew from Europe 
into the wilds of their native Scythia." (3) 
Finally came Genseric the Vandal. " The kings 
of the Vandal Empire in Northern Africa had ac- 
quired as perfect a supremacy in the Western Med- 
iterranean as Carthage ever enjoyed in the days of 
her commercial pride." It was in the year 455 a.d. 
that a Vandal fleet, led by the dread Genseric, 
sailed up the Tiber. Panic seized the people of 



72 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Rome. The petitions of the pious Leo again miti- 
gated the terrors of Rome's sufferings, but he 
could not save the city from sack. '' The cruel 
fate of Carthage might have been read again in 
the pillaged city that the Vandals left behind 
them." 

Fall of Rome. " Only the shadow of the 
Western Empire now remained. All the provinces 
— Illyricum, Gaul, Britain, Spain, and Africa — 
were in the hands of the Goths, the Vandals, the 
Franks, the Burgundians, the Angles and Saxons, 
and various other intruding tribes." The prestige 
of Rome was gone, and finally Italy became '' in 
effect a province of the Empire in the East, 476 
A.D. The Empire of the West had fallen." 

Rome of the Middle A^es. In 493 a.d. The- 
odoric set up in Italy a new dominion, known as 
the Kingdom of the Ostrogoths. They were con- 
quered by the generals of Justinian. (See Myers, 
page 371.) In the year 568 a.d. (see Myers, page 
374) the Lombards conquered almost all Italy, and 
set up a kingdom which lasted nearly two cen- 
turies. In the year 800 a.d. Charlemagne (see 
Myers, page 406) restored the holy Roman em- 
pire, receiving the crown from Pope Leo III. The 
Treaty of Verdun (see Myers, page 408) sep- 
arated Italy from Germany and France. This 
separation was the origin of modern Italy. 



THE ROMANS 73 

ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE EAST 

" During the fifty years immediately following 
the fall of Rome, the Eastern Emperors struggled 
hard (see Myers, page 389) to withstand the 
waves of the barbarian inundation which con- 
stantly threatened to overwhelm Constantinople 
with the same awful calamities that had befallen 
the imperial city of the West." 

Justinian. " Fortunately, in the year 527, 
there ascended the throne a prince of ability." 
This was Justinian, whose great general Belisarius 
and his famous lawyer Tribonian made his reign 
glorious and prosperous. 

Heraclius. About fifty years later another 
great prince, Heraclius, ruled at Constantinople. 
(See Myers, page 390.) It was he who almost 
annihilated the Persians near by the place of the 
Assyrian Nineveh, but Heraclius was unable to 
save Jerusalem from the Saracens. Henceforth 
the Roman element becomes subordinate to the 
Greek. The capture of Constantinople by the 
Turks, 1453 A.D., finally closed " the long and 
checkered history of the Graeco-Roman empire in 
the East." 

CIVILIZATION 

In their civilization the Romans rose highest as 
conquerors and organizers, but also made respect- 
able attainments in literature, oratory, and philos- 
ophy. 



74 GENEBAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

RELIGION 

( I ) " The basis of the Roman rehglous system 
was the same as that of the Grecian ; the germs of 
its institutions were brought from the same early- 
Aryan home." (2) "At the head of the Pan- 
theon stood Jupiter, identical in all essential at- 
tributes with the Hellenic Zeus. To him, together 
with Juno and Minerva, was consecrated, as we 
have already noticed, a magnificent temple upon 
the summit of the Capitoline Hill, overlooking the 
Forum of the city." Other important Roman di- 
vinities were Mars, the war god, Janus, " the god 
of the beginning and end of everything," Vesta, 
together with the Lares and Penates, the household 
divinities. The Romans, like the Greeks, believed 
in oracles and divination, and had a system of 
priests known as sacred colleges with which the 
history student should be quite familiar. Then, 
too, the Romans held sacred games, chiefly those 
of the circus. " These festivals, as in the case of 
those of the Greeks, had their origin in the belief 
that the gods delighted in the exhibition of feats 
of skill, strength, or endurance; that their anger 
might be appeased by such spectacles ; or that they 
might be persuaded by the promise of games to 
lend aid to mortals in great emergencies." The 
Romans also made uses of these games. (3) 
" Towards the close of the republic these games 
lost much of their religious character, and at last 



THE ROMANS 



75 



became degraded into mere brutal shows given by 
ambitious leaders for the purpose of winning popu- 
larity." 

ARCHITECTURE 

( I ) The Romans '' not only modified the archi- 
tectural forms they borrowed, but they gave their 
structures a distinct character by the prominent use 
of the arch, which the Greek and Oriental build- 
ers seldom employed, though they were acquainted 
with its properties." (2) Among their sacred edi- 
fices the most famous one was the Pantheon, re- 
mains of which still exist. The Colosseum de- 
serves our special attention. We ought also have 
definite ideas about Roman aqueducts, baths, tri- 
umphal arches, bridges, harbors, roads, etc. (3} 
Among the most famous remains of Roman archi- 
tecture are the Claudian Aqueduct, the Arch of 
Titus, the Pantheon, and the Colosseum. The Ro- 
man Forum is an interesting place for tourists even 
in our day. 

LITERATURE 

( I ) Latin literature was a reproduction of Greek 
models. (2) Among the famous writers of the 
old republic were the dramatists Plautus and Ter- 
ence, together with Lucilius the satirist and Lu- 
cretius the evolutionist. " Four names have cast 
an unfading lustre over the period covered by the 
reign of Augustus, — Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and 
Livy. So distinguished have these writers ren- 



76 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

dered the age in which they Hved, that any period 
of a people's literature marked by unusual literary 
taste and refinement is called, in allusion to the 
Roman era, an Augustan Age." " Persius and Ju- 
venal, who lived and wrote during the last half of 
the first and the beginning of the second century 
of our era," were famous satirists whose master- 
pieces give us faithful pictures of the selfishness, 
immorality, and vice that characterized the age 
of Caligula, Nero, and Domitian/ (3) Most of 
these Roman writers are studied in our schools 
and colleges to-day. 

ORATORY 

( I ) " Public oratory is the child of political 
freedom, and cannot exist without it." So it was 
at Rome. (2) " Roman oratory was senatorial, 
popular, or judicial." The best representatives are 
the eloquent advocate Hortensius and Cicero the 
accuser of Catiline. (3) Cicero's orations are al- 
most as popular to-day as when they were first 
penned. 

HISTORY 

(i) The achievements of ancient Rome as a 
conqueror produced four great historians. (2) 
Caesar's Commentaries, Sallust's Conspiracy of 
Catiline, Livy's Annals, and the Germania of Tac- 
itus are worth our study, and (3) have held a 
place in our colleges up to our times. 



THE ROMANS 77 

PHILOSOPHY 

( I ) The leisure of imperial Rome, together with 
the stimulus of Greek thought, produced several 
great Roman thinkers. (2) The best Roman 
thinkers probably were Seneca, Pliny the younger, 
Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus, all deserving our 
attention. (3) Some of the writings of these 
authors have been spared. 



CHURCH WRITERS 

(i) When the Latin tongue began to be more 
generally used throughout the Roman provinces, 
Christian writers began to use it in their compo- 
sitions. This was particularly true of the last two 
centuries of the empire. (2) St. Jerome's transla- 
tion of the Scriptures into Latin and St. Augus- 
tine's " City of God" are both wonderful achieve- 
ments, and (3) they will always hold high rank in 
religious circles. 

LAW 

(i) The genius of ancient Rome was essen- 
tially military and juristic. (2) The systematic 
works of Tribonian, Justinian's great lawyer, re- 
semble the laws of the Greek decemvirs, but reach 
far beyond them in grasp of situations and polit- 
ical judgment. (3) " The body of the Roman law 
thus preserved and transmitted was the great con- 
tribution of the Latin intellect to civilization." 



78 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Roman law, modified of course by Christianity, 
still rules the world. 

SOCIETY 

( I ) With the ancient Romans the " state" was 
the controlling influence not only in the education 
of the youth, but in the position of woman, the 
character of amusements, and the institution of 
slavery. (2) The history student should master 
the essential features of all of these. (3) Degen- 
eracy in the Roman home-life, the brutality of 
gladiatorial combats, free corn, and slavery were 
the prominent causes in the moral fall of ancient 
Rome. 

References : (i) Myers ; (2) Duniy. 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



THE MIDDLE AGES 

The centuries between the fall of Rome (476 
A.D.) and the capture of Constantinople by the 
Turks (1453 A.D.) are commonly known as the 
Middle Ages. We may divide them into two pe- 
riods, (i) The dark ages, or the period follow- 
ing the fall of Rome, comes first. This catas- 
trophe, so destructive to intellectual possibilities, 
was the origin of modern peoples, languages, and 
institutions. (2) The Age of Revival began with 
the opening of the eleventh century. It was a 
period of advances, and, in the fifteenth century, 
one of improvements, inventions, and discoveries. 
'' The Crusades, or Holy Wars, were the most re- 
markable undertakings of the age." 

Before entering upon a study of the Middle 
Ages it is necessary to make " an analysis of the 
elements of civilization (see Myers, page 368), 
and to notice the position of the Celts, Slavonians, 
and other peoples that began to count for some- 
thing in the history of the Middle Ages." 

TEUTONIC KINGDOMS 

The Ostrogoths settled in Italy, the Visigoths 
in Spain, the Vandals in Africa, the Franks in 
France; the Lombards crowded upon the Ostro- 
goths in Italy ; the Anglo-Saxons set up kingdoms 

6 81 



82 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

in Britain. Among the very interesting characters 
in this connection is Clovis, king of the Franks, 
who tore away from Rome in the battle of Sois- 
sons, 486 A.D., and became a Christian ten years 
later in a battle with the Germanic Alemanni. The 
first remarkable Anglo-Saxon king was Egbert, 
the founder of a long line of kings. (See Myers, 
page 375-) 

CONVERSIONS OF BARBARIANS 

" The most important event in the history of 
the tribes that took possession of the Roman em- 
pire in the West was their conversion to Christian- 
ity." Ulfilas and Valens figure largely in the con- 
version of the Goths, Clovis in that of the Franks, 
St. Augustine in that of the Anglo-Saxons, St. 
Patrick in that of the Celts, and St. Boniface in 
that of the Germans. Among the important crises 
in the early Christianity of Britain was Oswy's 
Council at Whitby, 664 a.d. " By the opening of 
the fourteenth century all Europe was claimed by 
Christianity, save a limited district in Southern 
Spain held by the Moors, and another in the Baltic 
regions possessed by the still pagan Finns and 
Lapps." (See also the foot-note of Myers, page 
382.) 

Monasticism. (i) "The long conflict of the 
Christian Church with the barbarians whom it 
finally converted produced monasticism, a remark- 
able system of seclusion from the world, with the 



THE MIDDLE AGES Ss 

object of promoting the interests of the soul." (2) 
^<rhe hermits and monks lived a very ascetic, self- 
denying life. ) The three essential vows of the 
monks were those of poverty, chastity, and obe- 
dience, forbidding, respectively, the acquirement 
of property, the marriage of monks, and the domi- 
nance of the state over the church. The Order of 
the Benedictines was probably the most famous 
fraternity. (3) The advantages of monasticism 
were manifold. It reduced church work to system, 
and through its discipline it produced most effective 
missionaries, through whose zeal Europe was 
united by conversion in time to save it from the 
horrors of a Saracenic conquest. Among the more 
important intellectual results of monasticism was 
the preservation of learning through the Middle 
Ages. 

ROMANCE NATIONS 

(i) The gradual fusion of the conquerors and 
the conquered within the geographical domains of 
the Romans produced the so-called Romance na- 
tions. (2) The Ostrogoths and Lombards set- 
tling in Italy became the modern Italians, the 
Franks and Burgundians the modern French, and 
the Visigoths the modern Spaniards. They grad- 
ually spoke a modified Latin, in which, neverthe- 
less, the Latin greatly predominated over the Teu- 
tonic admixtures, so that even to this day these 
languages are known as the Romance languages. 
In the same way these nations became Romance 



84 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Christians, and, after Justinian's reign, they grad- 
ually substituted the Roman laws of Tribonian's 
collection for the peculiar Teutonic methods called 
ordeals. ( 3 ) The results have become established 
elements of civilization wherever the Romance na- 
tions made their homes. 

MOHAMMEDANS 

" The Arabs, or Saracens, who are now about 
to play their surprising part in history, are, after 
the Hebrews, the most important people of the 
Semitic race." " Before the reforms of Moham- 
med, the Arabs were idolaters. Their holy city 
was Mecca." In those days Arabia was a land of 
religious freedom even for the Jews and the Chris- 
tians. 

Mohammed. Mohammed was born at Mecca, 
570 A.D. " Like Moses, he spent many years of 
his life as a shepherd." Possessed of a deeply re- 
ligious nature, he employed his leisure in reflection 
and meditations, thus becoming a reformer. His 
first convert was his wife. Opposition to his teach- 
ings caused him to flee to Medina. This flight is 
known as the Hegira. He succeeded in raising an 
army, and conquered the whole of Arabia to his 
faith, dying 632 A.D. 

Caliphs. The Caliphs, or successors of Mo- 
hammed, pursuing his policy of conquest, hoped 
to carry the doctrines of the Koran into Europe. 
Driven back from Constantinople after their con- 



THE MIDDLE AGES 85 

quest of Syria and Persia, they turned down into 
Egypt and Northern Africa, finally crossing the 
strait into Spain. In 732 a.d. they were checked 
at Tours, in France, by Charles Martel. The geo- 
graphical isolation of the parts of this crescent em- 
pire produced several famous capitals and a final 
dismemberment of the Caliphate. The power 
passed rapidly from the hands of the Arabs to the 
Turks, and then to the Moors. 

Civilization of the Mohammedans. At Bag- 
dad, the Arabian capital, literature and science 
flourished. The " Arabian Nights" belongs to this 
period. The Moors were famous builders. The 
palace of the Alhambra is brought to our attention 
in Washington Irving's " Alhambra." There were 
fine institutions of learning and extensive libraries 
to be found, especially at Cordova, Toledo, and 
Bagdad, In spite of the serious defects of Islam, 
Mohammedanism has accomplished wonders, not 
only in its earliest centuries of conquests, but also 
from its Turkish centre of dominion, Constanti- 
nople. 

FRANKS 

The Franks first came into prominence, as we 
have seen (Myers, page 373), through the Mero- 
vingian king Clovis. The successors of Clovis 
were unable to keep the throne. '' Charles Martel, 
whose tremendous blows at Tours earned for him 
his significant surname, although the real head of 
the nation, was nominally only an ofificer of the 



S6 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Merovingian court. He died without ever having 
borne the title of king, notwithstanding he had 
exercised all the authority of that office." By the 
sanction of the Pope, Charles Martel's son, Pepin, 
became the king of the Franks, thus founding the 
second or Carlovingian line. " Quick to return the 
favor which the head of the church had rendered 
him in the establishment of his power as king, 
Pepin straightway crossed the Alps with a large 
army, expelled the Lombards from their recent 
conquests, and made a donation to the Pope of 
these captured cities and provinces, 755 a.d." This 
gift laid the basis of the temporal power of the 
Popes. 

Charlemagne. Charles, the son of Pepin, 
made fifty-two military campaigns, chief among 
them those against the Lombards, the Saracens, 
and the Saxons. The first of these campaigns gave 
him the iron crown of Lombardy, the next is 
famous for the death of Roland, and the last for 
the hero opposition of Witikind, the " second Ar- 
minius." In the year 800 a.d., for various reasons, 
Leo III. crowned Charles with the golden crown 
of Rome, thus restoring, as has been stated, the 
holy Roman empire in the West. His conquests, 
together with his promotion of religion, govern- 
ment, and education, gave Charles the title Char- 
lemagne, Charles the Great. He laid " the foun- 
dation of all that is noble and beautiful and useful 
in the history of the Middle Ages." 



THE MIDDLE AGES 87 

Verdun. " Like the kingdom of Alexander, 
the mighty empire of Charlemagne fell to pieces 
soon after his death." After a troublous period 
of dissension and war, the empire was divided by 
the important Treaty of Verdun (843 a.d.) among 
Charlemagne's three grandsons. In some sense 
this celebrated treaty was the origin of the great 
nations of Italy, France, and Germany, whose first 
kings thus sprang from the Carlovingian stock. 

NORSEMEN 

The Norsemen, the Northern branch of the Teu- 
tonic family, in possession of the Scandinavian 
peninsula probably before Caesar's invasion of 
Gaul, were hidden from our view the first eight 
centuries of our era, " but with the opening of the 
ninth century their black piratical crafts are to be 
seen creeping along all the coasts of Germany, 
Gaul, and the British isles, and even venturing far 
up their inlets and creeks." " After a time the 
bold corsairs began to winter in the lands they had 
harried during the summer; and soon all the 
shores of the countries visited were dotted with 
their stations or settlements.'* It was a second 
European inundation of Teutonic barbarians. 
" They laid aside their own manners, habits, ideas, 
and institutions, and adopted those of the country 
in which they established themselves. In Russia 
they became Russians; in France, Frenchmen; in 
England, Englishmen." Among our most inter- 



88 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

esting literary memorials of early Teutonic peoples 
are poems and legends called eddas, by Norse bards 
in Iceland. The Scandinavian chieftain Ruric 
founded the first royal line of Russia, 862 a.d. 
After years of struggle with the Anglo-Saxons 
" the Danes got the mastery, and Canute, king of 
Denmark, became king of England (1016)." 
The Anglo-Saxons regained the English throne, 
1042 A.D. In the year 918 a.d. Rollo, the leader 
of the Northmen that had settled at Rouen in 
France, obtained, upon conditions of homage and 
conversion, a large section of country in the north- 
ern part of France. This district soon began to be 
called Normandy, and its settlers, Normans. 

THE POPES OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

During the Middle Ages '' the Christian Church 
grew into a great spiritual monarchy, with the 
bishop of Rome as its head." ( i ) In its early or- 
ganization the Christian Church was governed 
from four centres, — Rome, Constantinople, Alex- 
andria, and Antioch. A number of circumstances 
combined to make the bishop of Rome bishop of 
bishops, or Pope. Among the causes that led to 
this primacy of the bishop of Rome was the spell 
of Rome's imperial prestige. Even the removal of 
the seat of government from Rome to Constanti- 
nople, in 476, helped the Roman pontiff, for it left 
him the most important personage at Rome. The 
success with which Leo the Great prevailed upon 



THE MIDDLE AGES 89 

the invading Attila and Genseric to spare the city 
or the Hves of the inhabitants, when emperors, the 
natural defenders, had failed to protect the city, 
was an immense gain for the Roman bishop's pres- 
tige. Rome early became the mother of many 
churches all over Europe, and these daughters 
would naturally look upon the bishop of Rome 
with veneration. The iconoclastic controversy, 
an eighth century dispute between the East and 
the West about the worship of images, vastly im- 
proved the power of the Roman pontiff, because, 
although the East was lost, he gained great polit- 
ical power through Charlemagne's friendship. In 
various ways, accordingly, by the end of the 
twelfth century, " the Pope "came to be regarded 
as the fountain of justice, and, in theory at least, 
the supreme judge of Christendom, while emper- 
ors and kings and all civil magistrates bore the 
sword simply as his ministers to carry into effect 
his sentences and decrees." In short, although the 
claim of the Guelphs, or adherents of the Pope, was 
much disputed by the Ghibellines or adherents of 
the emperors, the popes, for several centuries of 
the Middle Ages, had virtually become both world 
priests and world kings. (2) The supremacy of 
the papacy (see Myers, page 452) is illustrated by 
the contest between Hildebrand and Henry IV. of 
Germany. On becoming Pope in 1073, he under- 
took to enforce celibac}^ among the secular clergy 
and to suppress simony. The attempt to suppress 



90 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

simony interfered with the feudal homage which 
the state had thus far required from the church. 
Henry refused to accede to the Pope's decrees, and 
had him deposed, but was in turn excommunicated 
by the Pope, vastly to the distress of Henry, who 
set out for Canossa to accomplish a tardy recon- 
ciliation. Hildebrand was finally exiled to Salerno, 
where he died; but the quarrel ended in disaster 
for Henry. About a century later Pope Innocent 
III. was able to compel Philip Augustus, a very 
powerful king of France, to take back his divorced 
wife, and to force King John of England to accede 
to his wishes in the choice of a bishop for the See 
of Canterbury. The authority of the Popes imme- 
diately succeeding Innocent III. were " powerfully 
supported by the monastic orders of the Domini- 
cans and Franciscans," the begging friars or 
monks that came into existence early in the thir- 
teenth century. (3) The decline of the papal su- 
premacy began through the removal of the papal 
chair from Rome to Avignon, in France, by Philip 
the Fair, 1309. " The discontent awakened among 
the Italians by the situation of the papal court at 
length led to an open rupture between them and 
the French party." Then came rival popes, which 
caused the Councils of Pisa and Constance to con- 
vene, but, although these councils deposed both 
popes and once more united the Catholic world in 
Martin V., "the temporal rulers of France, Ger- 
many, and England successively revolted, and 



THE MIDDLE AGES 91 

freed themselves from the authority of the papacy 
as touching political or governmental affairs." 
Nevertheless kings still continued to assist the 
popes against heresies and schisms. 

FEUDALISM 

(i) In the century following the division of 
Charlemagne's empire by the Treaty of Verdun 
the Norse invaders of Europe, on settling down, 
portioned out conquered country among their re- 
tainers or sub-chiefs. Thus arose a military tenure 
of lands, together with the government of such 
lands, which, from the name feuds, or estates, 
came to be called feudalism. (2) In order to get 
a satisfactory mental photograph of the feudal sys- 
tem the history student must distinguish carefully 
between feudal lords, investiture, and suzerainty, 
on the one hand, and feudal vassals, homage, es- 
cheat, forfeiture, and aids, on the other hand. Be- 
sides these distinctions those of freemen, serfs, and 
slaves are necessary to complete the conception of 
feudal society. Then, finally, to get the picturesque 
and military view of feudal times, the student 
must have a pretty full knowledge of feudal cas- 
tles, meals, armies, hunts, etc. (3) In conse- 
quence of the protection which this system afforded 
in an age of commotions and violence, all classes of 
society, including kings, princes, and wealthy per- 
sons, and even allodial owners of land, churches, 
etc., hastened to become vassals of feudalism. 



92 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Various causes, and among them especially its in- 
herent defects and the Holy Wars, or Crusades, led 
to the decay of feudalism, or its conversion into 
chivalry. 

CHIVALRY 

( I ) Chivalry, " the flower of feudalism," was a 
refinement of feudalism through its moral contact 
with the church. (2) Its special features come 
into prominent view through a study of the four 
vows of chivalry, — namely, to speak the truth, de- 
fend the right, honor woman, and raise the sword 
against the infidel. In order to prepare the candi- 
dates for knighthood, and to live the life of chiv- 
alry as required by its vows, courses in fine eti- 
quette, polite literature, physical culture, military 
service, etc., were offered. This training began in 
boyhood and ended with the attainment of man- 
hood. Among the most interesting features of 
chivalry were the famous tournaments, or military 
festivals, — something like the sacred games of the 
Greeks. (3) Chivalry declined with feudalism, 
and for the same reasons, but not until it had 
helped to make the woman of the Middle Ages 
" a queen of love and beauty," and not until it 
had served as the most powerful agency in the 
Crusades. The system, somewhat modified, was 
brought from France into England by William of 
Normandy, who, by winning the battle of Hastings 
(1066 A.D.), became the king of England. (See 
Myers, pages 433-437.) 



THE MIDDLE AGES 93 

CRUSADES 

(i) The Crusades, or Holy Wars, beginning 
1096 A.D., were caused primarily by the insults 
and persecution of Christian pilgrims to the Holy 
City Jerusalem, which, in the eleventh century, had 
fallen into the hands of the Seljukian Turks. 
Peter the Hermit and Pope Urban were the in- 
strumental causes. (2) The first of these great 
military expeditions, under the leadership of God- 
frey of Bouillon, captured Jerusalem and estab- 
lished the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. The sub- 
sequent formation of fraternities, such as the 
Knights Templars, is very interesting. The second 
crusade, caused by the preaching of St. Bernard, 
and in charge of the emperor of Germany and the 
king of France, was wasted in Asia Minor. The 
third crusade is famous for the siege of Acre, the 
death of Frederick Barbarossa, the spleen of Philip 
Augustus, and the pathetic surrender of the project 
by Richard the Lion-hearted after a treaty with 
the renowned Saladin. The fourth crusade cap- 
tured Constantinople. Then followed the pitiful 
crusade by the children. The fifth and seventh 
crusades, conducted into Egypt by Louis IX. of 
France, cost him his life. The sixth crusade, con- 
ducted by Frederick II., is known as the " Peace 
Crusade." The first four crusades are known as 
the Major Crusades, the last four as Minor Cru- 
sades. (3) These holy wars cost " several millions 



94 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

of lives, besides incalculable expenditures and suf- 
ferings," and contributed powerfully to the down- 
fall of feudalism. At the same time they promoted 
commerce, enlarged the power of kings and popes, 
and enriched European universities through the 
addition of the Saracenic sciences. 

TURANIANS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

( I ) The Magyars, a branch of the Hunnic race, 
established the kingdom of Hungary in the ninth 
century, and in time became thoroughly European- 
ized. (2) The Seljukian Turks, so called from 
the name of one of their chiefs, captured Jerusa- 
lem, and, by their intolerance and aggression, 
caused the Crusades. (3) The Mongols overran 
and conquered the whole of Asia, under their re- 
nowned cavalry leaders, Genghis Khan and Tamer- 
lane, the two following each other at the distance 
of about two centuries. (4) Under Amurath I. 
(1360- 1 389) the Ottoman Turks, an offshoot of 
the Seljukians, got possession of a large part of 
the country known as Turkey in Europe. His son 
Bajazet defeated the combined forces of Hungary, 
Germany, and France, on the fatal field of Nicop- 
olis, in Bulgaria (1396). Instead of stabling his 
horse in the Cathedral of St. Peter, at Rome, and 
capturing Constantinople, as he threatened, he had 
to meet the Turks and Mongols on the plains of 
Angora, in Asia Minor, where he suffered a dis- 
astrous defeat at the hands of Tamerlane. In 1453 



THE MIDDLE AGES 95 

Mohammed II. captured Constantinople. " The 
cross, which since the time of Constantine the 
Great had surmounted the dome of St. Sophia, 
was replaced by the crescent, which remains to 
this day." The Ottoman Turks are gradually 
'' being pushed out from their European posses- 
sions, and the time is probably not very far dis- 
tant when they will be driven back across the Bos- 
phorus, as their Moorish brethren were expelled 
long ago from the opposite corner of the continent 
by the Christian chivalry of Spain." 

CITY REPUBLICS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

( I ) "As the cities, through their manufactures 
and trade, were the most wealthy members of the 
Feudal System, the lords naturally looked to them 
for money when in need. Their exactions at last 
became unendurable, and a long struggle broke out 
between them and the burghers, which resulted in 
what is known as the enfranchisement of the 
towns." In the eleventh and twelfth centuries most 
of the towns of Western Europe obtained charters 
from their lords. Under the protection of their 
charters they increased in wealth and population 
until at last they became strong enough to effect 
their independence. Thus were formed the city 
republics, or commonwealths, of Italy and Ger- 
many. (2) " Towards the close of the thirteenth 
century Northern and Central Italy was divided 
among about two hundred contentious little city 



96 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

republics. Italy had become another Greece." 
Before the close of the fourteenth century nearly 
all these quarrelling city commonwealths had been 
converted into oligarchies or principalities. Fore- 
most among the Italian city republics were those 
of Venice, with its Doge, Genoa, the commercial 
rival of Venice, and Florence, the home of the 
wonderful reformer Savonarola and Michael x\n- 
gelo, the Medici, etc. In the eleventh and twelfth 
centuries the towns of Northern Germany began 
to extend their commercial connections into Italy. 
Fearing the robber nobles who lay in wait along 
the routes, some of the German cities in the 
fourteenth century formed the Hanseatic League. 
This Hansa, or League, established a protective 
system of trading-posts and became a great monop- 
oly. Various causes, and among them especially 
the disarrangement of old routes of trade, together 
with increasing governmental security, finally, in 
the seventeenth century, led to the dissolution of 
the league. " The chartered towns and free cities 
of the mediaeval era exerted a vast influence upon 
the commercial, social, artistic, and political devel- 
opment of Europe." 

THE NATIONS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

" The most important movement that marked 
the latter part of the Middle Ages was the group- 
ing, in several of the countries of Europe, of the 
petty feudal states and half-independent cities and 



THE MIDDLE AGES 97 

towns into great nations with strong centralized 
governments. This movement was accompanied 
by, or consisted in, the decHne of Feudahsm as a 
governmental system, the loss by the cities of their 
freedom, and the growth of the power of the 
kings." (See Myers, page 478.) *' This rise of 
Monarchy and decline of Feudalism, this substitu- 
tion of strong centralized governments in place of 
the feeble, irregular, and conflicting authorities of 
the feudal nobles, was a very great gain to the 
cause of law and good order. It paved the way for 
modern progress and civilization." 

England. The Plantagenet kings, who fol- 
lowed the Norman conquerors, lorded it over the 
common people of England, (i) Ini2i5 the feu- 
dal barons, taking up the quarrel, forced King John 
at Runnymede to grant the Magna Charta, a 
charter of rights. It contains fundamental pro- 
visions regarding life, liberty, property, taxes, etc., 
and, though often violated, this charta " must 
always be considered the most important conces- 
sion that a freedom-loving people ever wrung from 
a tyrannical sovereign." (2) In 1265 Henry III., 
John's son and successor, " violated his oath to 
rule according to the Great Charter." " The indig- 
nant barons rose in revolt" again, and, defeating 
the king at Lewes, forced him to issue " writs of 
summons to the nobles and bishops to meet in par- 
liament." Similar writs to the sheriffs of the dif- 
ferent shires directed them " to return two knights 

7 



98 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

for the body of their county, with two citizens or 
burghers for every city and borough contained in 
it/' Thus was born the House of Commons. (3) 
Edward L, who came to the throne in 1272, wanted 
Wales, and got it by slaying Llewellyn, thus for- 
ever extinguishing the independence of Wales. 
(4) Edward L also contrived to make himself the 
feudal overlord of Scotland, with John Balliol as 
his vassal. This feudal allegiance became galling 
to the Scots, and Balliol cast it off. War followed, 
and Balliol perished. The famous William Wal- 
lace, who took up the cause of Scotland, was also 
undone by Edward I. But finally Robert Bruce 
the Younger defeated Edward IL at Bannockburn, 
1 3 14, thus, in effect at least, gaining an indepen- 
dence from England which lasted until 1603, when 
James Stuart VL of Scotland became James I. of 
England. (5) France had helped Scotland in her 
struggles for independence. This caused the Hun- 
dred Years' War between England and France. It 
was something like the Peloponnesian War. Its 
principal engagements were the battles of Crecy 
(1436), Poitiers, and Agincourt, the latter leading 
to the treaty of Troyes, which, because it was un- 
satisfactory to the French, caused the siege of Or- 
leans, under the inspiration of Joan of Arc, the 
Maid of Orleans. The English were defeated, and 
the Dauphin Charles, in whose interest Joan of Arc 
had fought, was crowned as Charles VII. (1429). 
The fate of the Maid of Orleans is very pathetic. 



THE MIDDLE AGES 99 

(6) The final result of the Hundred Years' War 
was a shameful contest between the feudal Houses 
of York and Lancaster. It is known as the war of 
the roses, a'nd, after thirty years, came to an end 
with the battle of Bosworth, 1485. This vic- 
tory ended feudalism in England and made it a 
monarchy, with the victor Henry Tudor as Henry 
VIL 

France. " The kingdom of France begins 
properly with the accession of the first of the Cape- 
tian rulers, late in the tenth century, for the Mero- 
vingian and Carlovingian kings were simply Ger- 
man princes reigning in Gaul." " The Capetians 
held the throne for more than three centuries, when 
they were followed by the Valois kings." *' Our 
aim will be to give prominence to those matters 
which concern the gradual consolidation of the 
French monarchy." ( i ) After the battle of Has- 
tings (1066) William the Conqueror of England 
still continued to be a vassal of France for his pos- 
sessions there. " As was inevitable, a feeling of 
intense jealousy sprang up between the two sov- 
ereigns. The French king was ever watching for 
some pretext upon which he might deprive his rival 
of his possessions in France. The opportunity 
came when King John, in 1199, succeeded Richard 
the Lion-hearted upon the English throne. That 
odious tyrant was accused, and doubtless justly, of 
having murdered his nephew Arthur. Philip Au- 
gustus, who then held the French throne, as John's 

LofO. 



loo GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

superior, ordered him to clear himself of the charge 
before his French peers. John refusing to do so, 
Philip declared forfeited all the lands he held as 
fiefs" in France. (2) The Crusades, in which 
three French kings took part, tended to weaken the 
feudal nobility and, in a corresponding degree, to 
strengthen the authority of the crown. The cru- 
sade against the Albigenses, a religious sect of 
Southern France, is particularly interesting. (3) 
" The event of the greatest significance in the 
Capetian age was the admission (1302), in the 
reign of Philip the Fair, of the commons to the 
feudal assembly, or council, of the king. This 
transaction is in French history what the first sum- 
moning of the House of Commons is in English." 
This joint body of the nobles, bishops, and 
burghers became known as the States General, and 
the admission of the burghers vastly strengthened 
the king. (4) "By the successive shocks of Crecy, 
Poitiers, and Agincourt," the famous battles of the 
Hundred Years' War, " the French feudal aristoc- 
racy, which was already tottering through the 
undermining influence of the crusades," was almost 
completely prostrated before Charles VII. (5) 
The final blow at French feudalism was the con- 
quest of Charles the Bold, the feudal lord of Bur- 
gundy, by the French king Louis XL That the 
French monarchy had now absorbed all the feudal 
estates of France may be seen from the fact that 
when Charles VHL invaded Italy he had paid 



THE MIDDLE AGES loi 

troops instead of feudal retainers. This happened 
at the close of the fifteenth century. 

Spain. ( I ) " When, in the eighth century, 
the Saracens swept like a wave over Spain, the 
mountains of Asturia, in the northwest corner of 
the peninsula, afforded a refuge for the most reso- 
lutie Christian chiefs who refused to submit their 
necks to the Moslem yoke." (2) The work of 
reconquest soon began, and, furthered by Charle- 
magne's conquest of the Moors in Northern Spain, 
the Christians gradually but surely recovered them- 
selves. The Christian states of Castile and Ara- 
gon became prominent in the eleventh century. In 
1479 the sovereigns of these states formed a union. 
(3) In 1492 they conquered Granada, the last 
stronghold of the Moorish power in Spain. " The 
Moors, or Moriscoes, as they were called, were 
allowed to remain in the country and to retain their 
Mohammedan worship, though under many an- 
noying restrictions." This conquest of the Moors 
" advanced Spain to the first rank among the na- 
tions of Europe, and gave her a'rms a prestige that 
secured for her position, influence, and deference 
long after the decline of her power had com- 
menced." " Ferdinand greatly advanced his power 
by the active and tyrannical use of the Inquisition, 
a court that had been established by the church for 
the purpose of detecting and punishing heresy." 

Germany. ( i ) " The history of Germany as 
a separate kingdom begins with the break-up of 



I02 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

the empire of Charlemagne." (2) " While the 
kings of England, France, and Spain were grad- 
ually consolidating their dominions, and building 
up strong centralized monarchies on the ruins of 
feudalism, the sovereigns of Germany, neglecting 
the affairs of their own kingdom, were allowing it 
to become split up into a vast number of virtually 
independent states, the ambitions and jealousies of 
whose rulers were to postpone the unification of 
Germany for four or five hundred years — until our 
own day." (3) "In 962, just a little more than 
a century and a half after the coronation at Rome 
of Charlemagne as emperor," Otto the Great, the 
second of the Saxon kings of Germany, was 
crowned Emperor of the Romans. (4) The Hoh- 
enstaufen emperors of Germany, best represented 
by Frederick Barbarossa, of the third crusade, built 
famous cathedrals like those at Strasburg and Co- 
logne, but ruined their house by quarrelling with 
the popes. " The most noteworthy matters in Ger- 
man history during the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries are the struggles between the Swiss and 
the dukes of Austria, the religious movement of 
the Hussites, and the growing power of the House 
of Austria." In these connections the legend of 
William Tell, and the Council of Constance, are 
of special interest to history students. (5) In the 
year 1438, Albert, Duke of Austria, was raised to 
the imperial throne. Albert's accession through 
Electors, a body of four princes and three bishops, 



THE MIDDLE AGES 



103 



was a sort of compromise with feudalism, and 
marks an epoch in German history. " The great- 
est of the Hapsburg [Austrian] Hne during the 
mediaeval period was Maximilian I. (1493- 15 19). 
His reign is in every way a noteworthy one in Ger- 
man history, marking, as it does, a strong tend- 
ency to centralization and the material enhance- 
ment of the Imperial authority.'* 

Russia. ( I ) " About the middle of the ninth 
century the Swedish adventurer Rurik laid, among 
the Slavonian tribes dwelling eastward from the 
Baltic, the foundation of what was destined to 
become one of the leading powers of Europe. The 
state came to be known as Russia." (2) The 
Tartar, or Mongol, conquest of the thirteenth cen- 
tury was a Russian calamity, placing a heavy yoke 
upon the country for two hundred years. (3) 
^' It was not until the reign of Ivan the Great 
(1462-1505) that Russia, — now frequently called 
Muscovy from the fact that it had been reorgan- 
ized with Moscow as a centre, — after a terrible 
struggle, succeeded in freeing itself from the hate- 
ful Tartar domination, and began to assume the 
character of a well-consolidated monarchy." 

Italy. ( I ) "In marked contrast to all those 
countries of which we have thus far spoken, unless 
we except Germany, Italy came to the close of the 
Middle Ages without a national or regular gov- 
ernment. This is to be attributed in large part to 
that unfortunate rivalry between pope and em- 



I04 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

peror which resulted in dividing Italy into the two 
hostile camps of Guelph and Ghibelline." (2) The 
most noteworthy movements in the direction of 
political union for Italy were the ill-fated attempts 
of Rienzi, Tribune of Rome, 1347, the Renais- 
sance, or Revival of Learning, of which we shall 
speak presently, and the wonderful politico-relig- 
ious reformer the Florentine Savonarola. 

Northern Countries. ( i ) " The great Scan- 
dinavian Exodus of the ninth and tenth cen- 
turies drained the Northern lands of some of the 
best elements of their population." For this and 
other reasons these countries did not play a promi- 
nent part in the history of the Middle Ages. (2) 
The Union of Calmar, under Margaret of Den- 
mark, was the only event of political importance 
( 1 397) • ( 3 ) " The Swedes arose again and again 
in revolt, and finally, under the lead of a noble- 
man named Gustavus Vasa, made good their inde- 
pendence (1523)." Norway eventually became a 
province of Denmark, and it '' remained attached 
to the Danish Crown until the present century.'^ 

FORMATION OF NATIONAL LITERATURES 

The so-called Dawn centuries, the later centuries 
of the Middle Ages, were pre-eminently the birth 
periods of national literatures. Writers no longer 
confined themselves to the use of Latin. On the 
contrary, they began to be able to express them- 
selves in their mother-tongue, — i.e., in the Ian- 



THE MIDDLE AGES 105 

guage of their own lands. Thus arose literature 
in England, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Ice- 
land, etc. ( I ) " Holding a position high above 
all other writers of early English is Geoffrey Chau- 
cer (1328), the Father of EngHsh Poetry. His 
greatest work is his ' Canterbury Tales.' " " Fore- 
most among the reformers and religious writers of 
the period under review was Wycliffe, the Morning 
Star of the Reformation." The followers of Wyc- 
liffe became known as "Lollards." (2) In the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries France produced 
the Troubadours and the Trouveurs, lyric and epic 
writers of rare charms. The first really noted prose 
writer in French literature was Froissart (1337- 
1410), the interesting annalist of the Hundred 
Years' War. (3) " Castilian, or Spanish, litera- 
ture begins in the twelfth century with the romance- 
poem of the ' Cid' (that is. Chief, the title of the 
hero of the poem), one of the great literary produc- 
tions of the mediaeval period." (4) ''It was under 
the patronage of the Hohenstaufen that Germany 
produced the first pieces of a national literature. 
The ' Song of the Niebelungen' is the great German 
mediaeval epic." It is a recast of German and 
Scandinavian legends. " The hero of the story is 
Siegfried, the Achilles of Teutonic legend and 
song." " Under the same emperors, during the 
twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Minnesingers, 
or lyric poets, flourished. They were the ' Trou- 
badours of Germany.' For the most part, refined 



io6 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

and tender and chivalrous and pure, the songs of 
these poets tended to soften the manners and Hft 
the hearts of the German people." 

Iceland. After its settlement by the Teutonic 
Norsemen in the ninth century, arose the Sagas, or 
legends, of the Northern races. Orally trans- 
mitted to the twelfth century, they were then em- 
bodied into the celebrated eddas, which " reflect 
faithfully the beliefs, manners, and customs of the 
Norsemen, and the wild, adventurous spirit of their 
sea-kings." 

REVIVAL OF LEARNING 

After the languor and depression of the first 
mediaeval centuries Europe had an intellectual 
awakening of remarkable proportions. ( i ) In the 
most general sense, this awakening, or Revival of 
Learning, began through Charlemagne's Cathedral 
schools, where the so-called seven liberal arts — 
grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry, as- 
tronomy, and singing — ^were taught in connection 
with religion. (2) This system of training, meant 
more especially for the priests, developed into " a 
form of philosophy called, from the place of its 
origin, scholasticism, while its expounders were 
known as school-men. It was a fusion of Chris- 
tianity and Aristotelian logic." Among the most 
famous school-men were Duns Scotus, Thomas 
Aquinas, Albertus Magnus, and Abelard. (3) In 
the thirteenth century the Cathedral schools were 



THE MIDDLE AGES 107 

expanded into universities, as at Paris, Bologna, 
and Salerno. This enlargement of the Cathedral 
schools into universities was due largely to the 
popularity of the school-men. The scientific spirit 
awakened in the Saracenic schools, as in Spain, 
where Christian students attended, also contrib- 
uted to the same result. The Cathedral course 
was enlarged so as to embrace medicine, theology, 
law, and philosophy. (4) " About the begin- 
ning of the fourteenth century there sprung up 
in Italy a great enthusiasm for Greek and Latin 
literature and art. This is generally known as the 
Italian Renaissance, or the New Birth." " The in- 
tellectual and literary phase of this movement is 
called Humanism, and the promoters of it are 
known as Humanists, — i.e., students of the human- 
ities, or polite literature." " The real originator of 
the humanistic movement was Petrarch," an Ital- 
ian lover of Greek literature. With him must be 
associated the Italian poets Dante and Boccaccio, 
and the Greek Chrysoloras. Humanism was 
greatly promoted after 1453 by Greek exiles from 
captured Constantinople. Such popes as Nicholas 
v., founder of the Vatican library, and Leo X., 
the patron of artists, received these exiles, so to 
say, with open arms. Under the auspices of their 
patrons the Humanists collected and translated 
manuscripts, founded libraries, etc. The passion 
of Italian Humanism was fatal to Italian Chris- 
tianity. In Germany and England, whither the 



io8 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

movement spread, it produced the Reformation 
through the Humanistic study of the Bible. Guten- 
berg's printing-press no doubt contributed to this 
more excellent result of Humanism in Germany. 
(5) The Renaissance, added to the overthrow of 
feudalism and the establishment of monarchies, 
virtually closed the Middle Ages. 

References : (i) Myers ; (2) Duruy, 



THE MODERN AGES 



THE MODERN AGES 

The great events that form the prelude to mod- 
ern history are the discovery of the new world by 
Columbus, Vasco da Gama's discovery of a water- 
path to India, Magellan's voyage around the globe 
by way of the strait that bears his name, the con- 
quest of Mexico by Cortez, and that of Peru by 
Pizarro, together with the Spanish colonization of 
the new world. To save the Indians, negroes were 
introduced as a substitute for native laborers in the 
Spanish colonies. It was the act of the gentle Las 
Casas, the "Apostle of the Indians." American 
slavery was the final issue. 



THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS 
REVOLTS 

The revolt of Northern Europe from the spir- 
itual jurisdiction of Rome, covering the sixteenth 
and the first half of the seventeenth century, is the 
momentous beginning of Modern Ages. 

GERMANY 

( I ) Among the causes leading up to the Refor- 
mation in Germany must be named the great men- 
tal awakening of the Renaissance period. Then, 
too, the invention of printing powerfully aided re- 
ligious discussion. Earnest and spiritually minded 
men also found fault with certain abuses in the 
church and questioned the right of popes to share 
in the internal governmental affairs of a nation. 
The immediate cause was the controversy which 
arose about indulgences. Martin Luther, an Au- 
gustine monk, and a teacher of theology in the 
university of Wittenberg, terribly incensed by 
Tetzel's sale of indulgences, finally (15 17) '' drew 
up ninety-five theses, or articles, wherein he fear- 
lessly stated his views respecting indulgences.'' 
" These theses, written in Latin, he nailed to the 
door of the church at Wittenberg, and invited all 

scholars to examine and criticise them, and to point 
112 



THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS REVOLTS 113 

out if in any respect they were opposed to the 
teachings of the word of God, or the early fathers 
of the church. By means of the press the theses 
were scattered with incredible rapidity throughout 
every country in Europe." (2) '' The continent 
was now plunged into a perfect tumult of contro- 
versy." Luther burned the bull which Pope Leo 
X. had sent to Wittenberg. He was, accordingly, 
summoned to Worms for trial. Although pro- 
nounced a heretic, he was allowed to depart in 
safety. His friends carried him to Wartburg, 
where he began his translation of the Bible into 
German. Before the year had passed he was called 
to Wittenberg by the troubles of the Peasants' 
War. The doctrines of Luther gained ground very 
rapidly. The matter was considered by a diet at 
Spires. Protesting against the action of the diet, 
the reformers from this time began to be known 
as Protestants. The next year (1530) a diet was 
convened at Augsburg by Charles V. On this oc- 
casion the Protestants offered a statement of faith, 
since known as the Augsburg Confession. Fearing 
Charles V., who was just then at war with Soly- 
man the Turk, the Protestants formed a protective 
association known as the Smalcald League. War 
with Charles followed. It is known as the Smal- 
cald war, and ended in a compromise known as 
the Peace of Augsburg (1555). (3) In the mean 
time several causes conspired to check Protestant- 
ism. " Chief among them were the divisions 



114 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

among the Protestants, the CathoHc counter-re- 
form, the increased activity of the Inquisition, and 
the rise of the Order of Jesuits." All these checks 
deserve our careful study. Notwithstanding these 
checks, other nations followed Germany in her 
revolt from Rome until the Pope had lost both 
temporal and spiritual jurisdiction over one-half of 
Western Christendom. 

SPAIN 

(i) In 1 5 19 the King of Spain, already the 
recipient of four hereditary crowns, became Em- 
peror of Germany under the title of Charles V. 

Charles V. " The young emperor placed him- 
self at the head of the Catholic party, and during 
his reign employed the strength and resources of 
his empire in repressing the heresy of the re- 
formers." (2) " Fortunately for the cause of the 
reformers, Charles's attention, during all the first 
part of his reign, was drawn away from the serious 
consideration of church questions by the attacks 
upon his dominions of two of the most powerful 
monarchs of the times, — Francis I. (1515-1547), 
of France, and Solyman the Magnificent (1520- 
1566), Sultan of Turkey." Francis was Charles's 
rival for imperial honors, and, sorely disappointed 
because the Electors of Germany gave the crown 
to his rival, he worried him with four wars, which, 
for a quarter of a century, " kept nearly all Europe 
in a perfect turmoil." During these quarrels the 



THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS REVOLTS 115 

Sultan Solyman not only helped Francis at times, 
but crept right into the heart of Europe, with most 
calamitous results to the Christians. When peace 
came, Francis crushed the Waldenses of Southern 
France, a Protestant movement that had acquired 
considerable proportions, and Charles turned his 
attention to the reformers in Germany. (3) 
Finally, in 1556, the year after his Augsburg com- 
promise, chagrined to find that he could not effect 
his purposes in toto, he abdicated. During his 
reign, ending as it did in gloom, Spain had re- 
mained untouched by the Reformation. 

PhUip II. (i) "With the abdication of 
Charles V. the Imperial crown passed out of the 
Spanish line of the House of Hapsburg. Yet the 
dominions of Philip were scarcely less extensive 
than those over which his father had ruled." (2) 
The reign of Philip 11. , like that of his father, was 
remarkable for war and unrest. He at once re- 
sumed his father's quarrel with France, repressed 
the Moors in Spain with terrible severity, and tried 
with all the vindictive vehemence of his crafty 
nature to crush the Reformation in the Nether- 
lands, one of his hereditary provinces. In 1571 
" Philip rendered an eminent service to civilization 
in helping to stay the progress of the Turks in the 
Mediterranean." All Christendom had become 
alarmed at Turkish aggression. An immense fleet, 
with Philip's half-brother, Don Juan of Austria, 
in command, almost totally defeated the Ottoman 



ii6 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

fleet in the gulf of Lepanto, on the western coast 
of Greece. The Ottoman Turks never recovered 
from this blow to their power. " In 1588 Philip 
made his memorable attempt with the so-called 
' Invincible Armada' upon England, at this time a 
stronghold of Protestantism. As we shall see a 
little later, he failed utterly in the undertaking." 
(3) "Ten years after this he died in the palace 
of the Escurial," having successfully kept the Ref- 
ormation out of Spain. " With his death closed 
that splendid era of Spanish history which began 
with the discovery of the New World by Colum- 
bus. From that time forward the nation steadily 
declined in power, reputation, and influence." The 
calamitous expulsion of the Moors from Spain by 
Philip IL (1598-1621) was followed by the revolt 
of the Netherlands in 1609. In 1639 Spain lost 
Portugal. In 18 19 she had to cede Florida to the 
United States. Finally, in 1898, she lost Cuba, 
Porto Rico, and the Philippines to the United 
States. To the young King Alfonso XIII. ( 1902) 
only the shadow of Spain's former magnificence 
has come as his kingdom. 

ENGLAND 

In 1485, as we have seen, Henry Tudor became 
Henry VH. of England. The reign of the Tudors 
covered practically the sixteenth century. " It was 
under the Tudors that England was severed from 
the spiritual empire of Rome and Protestantism 



THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS REVOLTS 117 

firmly established in the island." '' The soil in 
England was, in a considerable measure, prepared 
for the seed of the Reformation by the labors 
of the Humanists, — Colet, Erasmus, and More. 
Wycliffe's followers, the Lollards, also paved the 
way." 

Henry VII. The reign of Henry VII., inter- 
esting as it may be on account of the Benevolences, 
or gifts, which he extorted from the rich, and also 
on account of the maritime discoveries by the 
Cabots, must really be regarded as the birth-period 
of the Reformation in England. In the course of 
the am.bitious foreign matrimonial alliances which 
Henry made for his children, the Spanish Cath- 
arine of Aragon became the wife, first of his son 
Arthur and then of Arthur's brother Henry. 

Henry VIII. When England, with the rest 
of Christendom, was stirred by Luther's theses, 
Henry defended Rome. Presently Henry wanted 
a divorce from Catharine. The Pope refused to 
grant it, and Wolsey, the great chancellor of 
Henry, did not seem to exert himself much in his 
sovereign's desire. Wolsey was, accordingly, ban- 
ished from the court, and Thomas Cromwell, a 
man of great power, became Wolsey's successor. 
This wonderful Cardinal counselled Henry to 
break away from Rome, '' proclaim himself su- 
preme head of the church in England, and then 
get a divorce from his own courts." Henry carried 
out Cromwell's suggestions to the letter, adding 



ii8 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

proscriptions and persecutions of his own inven- 
tion. In effect, at least, he had made himself the 
founder of the present Church of England. 

£dward VI. By the will which Parliament 
directed Henry VIII. to make, in order to settle 
the question of succession which the king had com- 
plicated by his marriages and divorces, his son 
Edward became Edward VI. " As Edward was 
but a child of nine years, the government was in- 
trusted to a board of regents made up of both 
Protestants and Catholics." The Protestants, 
usurping the authority of the body, took charge 
of the king's education, and promoted Protestant- 
ism in various ways. The period is notable for 
the publication of the English Book of Common 
Prayer prepared by Archbishop Cranmer, and the 
well-known Forty-two Articles of Religion, prac- 
tically an English version of the famous Augsburg 
Confession. In order to enforce the adoption of 
these sweeping changes the Catholics were ter- 
ribly persecuted. 

Mary. Notwithstanding an effort to place 
Lady Jane Grey upon the English throne, Ed- 
ward's sister Mary, a devout Catholic, succeeded 
him, as the will of Henry VIIL, their father, re- 
quired it. Her rival was eventually brought to the 
block. Mary, in accordance with the spirit of the 
times, labored with axe, sword, and fagot to ex- 
terminate heresy. Philip II., whom Mary had 
married, coaxed her into war with France. 



THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS REVOLTS 119 

" The result of England's participation in the war 
was her mortifying loss of Calais. It broke her 
heart." 

Elizabeth. The last of the Tudor sovereigns 'o 
was Elizabeth, the daughter of Henry VIII. and 
Anne Boleyn. Like her father, she was very dip- 
lomatic, choosing her ministers with remarkable 
sagacity. Like her sister Mary, she had a rival 
for the throne, the beautiful Mary Stuart, Queen 
of Scots, whose pathetic career finally ended on 
the block. Elizabeth, siding with the Protestants, 
promoted the interests of the Reformation through 
two parliamentary acts, — the Act of Supremacy 
and the Act of Uniformity, — and she bitterly per- 
secuted all non-conformists. The signal defeat of 
the Invincible Armada, sent to punish Elizabeth 
for the execution of Mary Stuart, finally removed 
from England all fear of further annoyance from 
Catholic Spain. Thus, in addition to triumphs in 
maritime and colonial enterprises, as well as the 
literary triumphs of Shakespeare, Bacon, etc., the 
reign of Elizabeth had fully established the English 
Reformation. 

NETHERLANDS 

( 1 ) " Although Charles V. could not prevent the 
growth of Protestantism in Germany, he resolved 
to root out the heresy from his hereditary pos- 
sessions of the Netherlands. These lowlands, the 
delta accumulations of North Sea rivers, geograph- 
ically comprising what is now occupied by the 



I20 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

kingdoms of Holland and Belgium, contained, at 
the time of Charles's accession, a crowded and busy- 
population of more than three million souls." The 
sufferings which he inflicted on his subjects are 
simply indescribable, " but when Charles returned 
to the monastery at Yuste (see Myers, page 534), 
the reformed doctrines were, notwithstanding all 
his efforts, far more widely spread and deeply 
rooted in the Netherlands than when he entered 
upon their extirpation by fire and sword." (2) 
Philip II., who, as we remember, obtained the 
crown of Charles V. by the latter's abdication in 
1555, tried, if anything, harder than his father 
to root out heresy in the Netherlands. (3) Four 
years after Philip's coronation he set sail for Spain, 
never to return. His sister Margaret, Duchess of 
Parma, whom he had appointed regent, went on 
persecuting the Protestants with renewed bitter- 
ness. The nobles of the Netherlands, to whom, on 
presenting a petition of grievances, the term " beg- 
gars" had been derisively applied, finally deter- 
mined to get satisfaction at any cost. " The pent- 
up indignation of the people at length burst forth 
in an uncontrollable fury." The insurgent mobs 
which arose, hating the inquisition under which 
they suffered, went about despoiling churches and 
monasteries. These mobs are known as iconoclasts, 
or image-breakers. (4) " The image-breaking riots 
threw Philip into a perfect transport of rage." He 
sent to the Netherlands a veteran Spanish army, 



THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS REVOLTS 121 

headed by the Duke of Alva, one of the ablest gen- 
erals of his age. Those who could do so hastened 
to get out of the country. The eyes of all Nether- 
landers were now turned to William the Silent, 
Prince of Orange, who had begun to gather an 
army of volunteers for the struggle which he saw 
was inevitable. He coped ably with all the generals 
that Philip could send against him. After the 
" Spanish Fury" the Prince of Orange was able 
to unite the seventeen provinces against Spain. 
The union is known as the Pacification of Ghent 
(1576). The success of Don Juan, who had been 
sent to take Alva's place, caused the Pacification 
to break up. Once more William succeeded in 
forming the seven provinces of Holland into a 
union, known as the Union of Utrecht (1579). 
Philip IL, seeing only the Prince of Orange in the 
way of his success, pronounced a "ban" against 
him, which, after the latter's defiant " apology," 
soon bore fruit. An assassin did the work. (5) 
" Prince Maurice, a youth of seventeen years, the 
second son of William, was chosen Stadtholder in 
his place, and proved himself a worthy son of the 
great chief and patriot." Queen Elizabeth of Eng- 
land, alarmed by the assassination of the Prince 
of Orange, now " openly espoused the cause of 
the Dutch." Among the English knights who 
led the British forces into the Netherlands was 
the gallant Sir Philip Sydney, the " Flower of 
Chivalry." France also took the side of the Dutch. 



122 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Finally, when Europe had grown weary of the 
struggle, Spain, by the treaty of 1609 and later by 
that of Westphalia (1648), acknowledged the in- 
dependence of the Netherlands. Not only had the 
reformers won the fight in the Netherlands, but, 
in spite of the struggle, the country had developed 
in many other ways. 

FRANCE 

( I ) " There appeared in the University of Paris 
and elsewhere in France men who, from their study 
of the Scriptures, had come to entertain opinions 
very like those of the German reformer, so that the 
land which had been the home of the Albigenses 
was again filled with heretics." The religious up- 
rising of Germany gave this French movement a 
special impulse. The persecutions of Protestant 
subjects by Francis I. and his son Henry 11. finally 
helped to produce those long and woful civil- 
religious wars which wasted France all through 
the reigns of Henry's feeble sons, Francis, Charles, 
and Henry. (2) The contending parties in this six- 
teenth century civil-religious controversy of France 
were the Huguenots on the Protestant side, and the 
Guises on the side of the Catholics. The redoubt- 
able Admiral Coligny and the notorious Catherine 
de Medici were probably the most significant char- 
acters in the struggle. The conspiracy of Amboise, 
a Huguenot plot to wrest the government from the 
hands of the Guises and to get possession of the 



THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS REVOLTS 123 

boy-king Francis 11. , was revealed to the Guises. 
The execution of a thousand Huguenots followed. 
Death removed Francis II. from his beautiful wife 
Mary Stuart and the sorrows of France. His 
brother Charles, a child of ten years, became 
Charles IX., with the queen-mother, Catherine, as 
regent. Royal edicts in favor of Huguenot tol- 
eration angered the Guises and caused them to 
massacre a company of Huguenots worshipping in 
a barn at Vassy. " Sieges, battles, and truces fol- 
lowed one another in rapid and confusing succes- 
sion. Conspiracies, treacheries, and assassinations 
help to fill up the dreary record of the period. The 
treaty of St. Germain (in 1750) brought a short 
but, as it proved, delusive peace." Catherine tried 
to cement the treaty by the marriage of Charles's 
sister Margaret to Henry Bourbon, King of Na- 
varre. " Before the wedding festivities which fol- 
lowed the nuptial ceremonies were over, Catherine, 
fearfully angered by the influence which Admiral 
Coligny had suddenly acquired over the young 
King Charles, had planned the world-shocking 
massacre of the Huguenots, on St. Bartholomew's 
day, August 24, 1572. This massacre, ''instead 
of exterminating heresy in France, only served to 
drive the Huguenots to a more determined defence 
of their faith." Henry, the brother of Charles 
IX., became Henry III. in 1574. Turmoil and 
war filled his reign of fifteen years. The avenging 
dagger of a Dominican monk put an end to Henry 



124 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

III. and the House of Valois-Orleans. Henry of 
Bourbon, a Protestant Prince, now became Henry 

IV. It required four years to settle the affairs of 
France. After the famous battle of Ivry, Henry, 
in the interest of peace, abjured the Huguenot faith 
but granted the Huguenots various important con- 
cessions in the celebrated edict of Nantes (1598). 
Thus closed the Reformation century in France. 

(3) " France now entered upon such a period 
of prosperity as she had not known for many 
years." A fanatic having assassinated Henry IV. 
in 1 6 10, his son, a child of nine years, became 
Louis XIIL, and the queen-mother was appointed 
regent. Attaining his majority, Louis, in 1622, 
chose as his chief minister " Cardinal Richelieu," 
one of the most remarkable characters of the sev- 
enteenth century. Richelieu completely destroyed 
the political power of the French Protestants, and 
thus made the French king absolute in France. 
Then, in order to make the power of France su- 
preme in Europe, he gave the rest of his life to 
the unrelenting purpose of humbling Austria and 
Spain. Accordingly, although he had crushed 
French Protestantism, he took the side of the Prot- 
estant German Princes in the Thirty Years' War, 
which was then waging. 

THIRTY YEARS* WAR 

( I ) " The long and calamitous Thirty Years' 
War was the last great combat between Protestant- 



THE AGE OF RELIGIOUS REVOLTS 125 

ism and Catholicism in Europe." " It started as 
a struggle between the Protestant and Catholic 
princes of Germany, but gradually involved almost 
all the states of the continent, degenerating at last 
into a shameful and heartless struggle for power 
and territory." '' The flames that were to desolate 
Germany for a generation were first kindled in 
Bohemia, where were still smouldering the embers 
of the Hussite wars. One Protestant church was 
torn down and another closed." The Protestants 
rose in revolt against King Ferdinand, elected a 
new Protestant king, and drove out the Jesuits. 
The Thirty Years' War had begun (1618). (2) 
Ferdinand, who now became emperor, crushed the 
Bohemian insurrection with little difficulty. Then 
followed the Danish period of the war, in which 
Ferdinand, by the support of the famous generals 
Tilly and Wallenstein, finally forced Christian IV. 
of Denmark to conclude a treaty of peace. In the 
Swedish period Gustavus Adolphus, one of the 
world's greatest characters, came to the assistance 
of the Protestants. The jealousy of Protestant 
princes kept him from reaching Magdeburg in time 
to save it from Tilly's horrible sack and pillage, 
but he caught and defeated him in the celebrated 
battle of Leipsic (1631), and, emboldened by his 
success, pushed southward into the very heart of 
Germany. Tilly disputed the march of Gustavus, 
but was fatally wounded. There was only one man 
who could turn the tide of victory. That man was 



126 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Wallenstein, whom, because he distrusted him, Fer- 
dinand had dismissed from the imperial army a few 
months after the coming of Gustavus. Wallenstein 
was recalled, and, " after numerous marches and 
counter-marches, he attacked the Swedes in a ter- 
rible battle on the memorable field of Liitzen, in 
Saxony. The Swedes won the day, but lost their 
leader and sovereign (1632)." Shortly after- 
wards Ferdinand caused Wallenstein to be assas- 
sinated. Sweden, represented by the Great Oxen- 
stiern and supported, as already indicated, by Rich- 
elieu, and later on by Mazarin, the minister of 
Louis XIV., kept up the struggle until 1648, when 
the Treaty of Westphalia finally terminated the 
war. (3) "The chief articles of this important 
treaty may be made to fall under two heads, — (i) 
those relating to territorial boundaries, and (2) 
those respecting religion." The boundary pro- 
visions of the treaty reduced Germany to a loose 
confederation of almost independent states and 
postponed the nationalization of the empire to a 
distant future. The provisions regarding religion 
placed Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists all 
upon the same footing. It is simply impossible to 
picture the sorrows of Germany all through and 
after this war. Cities, commerce, fine arts, prog- 
ress in science and learning, together with morals, 
had been ruthlessly sacrificed. 

References : (i) Myers ; (2) Duniy. 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL 
REVOLUTIONS 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL 
REVOLUTIONS 

The idea that the sovereigns of nations are god- 
appointed rulers, responsible to God alone, and that 
nations should obey their rulers like children obey 
their parents, submitting to God the avenging of 
all wrongs, became the prevailing theory of gov- 
ernment early in the seventeenth century. The 
strong logic of revolution demonstrated that na- 
tions have a divine and inalienable right to govern 
themselves, and that the '' divine right" to rule 
nations is dependent upon '' the consent of the 
ruled." 

FRANCE 

The early lines of French kings, as we ought to 
recall at this time, were the Merovingians (a.d. 
486-752), best represented by the famous Clovis 
and the later Merovingian mayor Charles Martel, 
the hero of Tours {j'^'^^ '> ^^e Carlovingians (a.d. 
752-987), founded by Pepin the Short, with the 
Pope's consent, and best represented by Charle- 
magne, his illustrious son; the Capetians (a.d. 
987-1328), founded by Hugh Capet, and best rep- 
resented by Philip Augustus, Louis IX., and Philip 
the Fair; the House of Valois (1328- 1498), 
founded by Philip VI., and best represented by 

9 129 



I30 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Charles VII. and Louis XI; the Valois-Orleans 
line (1498-1589), best represented by Francis L, 
the great rival of Charles V. of Germany; and 
finally the Bourbons (i 589-1830), best represented 
by Louis XIV., interrupted by the French Revolu- 
tion and ended in Charles X. In 1643, ^ ^i^^l^ child 
of five years, the son of Louis XIIL, became Louis 
XIV. 

Louis XIV. " During the minority of Louis 
the government was in the hands of his mother, 
Anne of Austria, as regent. She chose as her 
prime minister an Italian ecclesiastic. Cardinal 
Mazarin, who, in the administration of affairs, fol- 
lowed in the footsteps of his predecessor, Richelieu,, 
carrying out with great ability the comprehensive 
policy of that minister." " Cardinal Mazarin died 
in 1 66 1. For ten or twelve years, Louis, who now 
assumed the reins of government himself, followed 
the peace-policy of Colbert, the successor of Maz- 
arin, and France was both prosperous and happy. 
Then came four ambitious but calamitous wars. 
Claiming portions of the Spanish Netherlands, he 
first went to war about the matter. Then, to pun- 
ish Holland for interfering with his plans in the 
Spanish Netherlands, he began a second war. In 
spite of stout defence on the side of the brave Hol- 
landers, Louis came out of this struggle with en- 
hanced reputation and fresh acquisitions of terri- 
tory. People now began to call him the Grand 
Monarch" In 1685 Louis revoked " the edict of 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 131 

Nantes, the well-known decree by which Henry 
IV. secured religious freedom to the French Prot- 
estants." This was a horrible mistake. " Under 
the fierce persecutions of the Dragonnades, prob- 
ably as many as three hundred thousand of the 
most skilful and industrious of the subjects of 
Louis were driven out of the kingdom," many of 
them ultimately finding refuge in America. " The 
indirect results of the revocation of the edict of 
Nantes wxre quite as calamitous to France as were 
the direct results." William of Orange, the great 
champion of indignant Protestants, organized a 
formidable confederacy against Louis. Louis re- 
solved to attack the confederates. Thus came the 
devastating war of the Palatinate, of which coun- 
try he made a veritable desert. " In 1700 the King 
of Spain, Charles 11. , died, leaving his crown to 
.Philip of Anjou, a grandson of Louis XIV." 
" Alarmed at this virtual consolidation of these 
two powerful kingdoms," England and Holland 
formed a second Grand Alliance against Louis. 
Thus came the war of the Spanish succession, the 
Grand Alliance favoring Charles, the Archduke 
of Austria, for the throne of Spain. The war 
lasted thirteen years, when, for various reasons, 
it was ended by the treaties of Utrecht and Ras- 
tadt. Finally, in 171 5, after a reign of seventy- 
two years, the last fifty of which are known as the 
Age of Louis XIV., the Grand Monarch yielded to 
Him who is the King of kings. The world-famous 



132 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

palace of Versailles, the brilliant court which he 
sustained, together with the literary lights of his 
age, made Louis XIV. the rage of all Europe, but 
all these things, together with his wars, left France 
in debt, vice, and sorrow, a heritage of woe to his 
great-grandson Louis, who was crowned as Louis 
XV. 

Louis XV. The French people loved their 
young king at first, " but long before he laid down 
the sceptre, all their early love and admiration had 
been turned into hatred and contempt. Besides 
being overbearing and despotic, the king was indo- 
lent, rapacious, and scandalously profligate." In 
the year 1774, after a reign of fifty-nine years, 
twenty of which have been called the *' Era of 
Shame," Louis XV. left his tottering throne to his 
grandson, then only twenty years of age, and only 
recently married to the fair and brilliant Marie 
Antoinette. By this time the causes which were 
now to produce the forever famous revolt of the 
French people against royal despotism and class 
privilege were all present in France, (i) The 
abuses and extravagances of the Bourbon mon- 
archy was the fundamental cause of the French 
Revolution. Life, liberty, and equality in the pur- 
suits of life and happiness were no longer respected 
by the kings of France. Money, gathered from 
exorbitant taxes and confiscations of property, 
" was squandered in maintaining a court the scan- 
dalous extravagances and debaucheries of which 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 133 

would shame a Turkish sultan." (2) The French 
nobility, " the remains of the once powerful but 
now broken-down feudal aristocracy of the Middle 
Ages," were living in riotous luxury at Paris or 
Versailles, as the king's pensioners, and the hold- 
ers of great landed properties. (3) The clergy 
formed a decayed feudal hierarchy, possessing 
enormous wealth and immense landed properties, 
almost free from taxes. Their patrician presump- 
tions made them the object of hatred everywhere. 
(4) The poorer classes had become indescribably 
poor and wretched. The peasants suffered intol- 
erable wrongs. France had become a hospital of 
woe. (5) Sceptic and revolutionary writers like 
Rousseau and Voltaire did much to create con- 
tempt for the institutions of civilization, and thus 
to produce the revolution. (6) " Not one of the 
least potent of the proximate causes of the French 
Revolution was the successful establishment of the 
American republic." 

Louis XVI. (i) It was the earnest desire of 
Louis XVI. to correct the conditions of France. 
He " called to his side successively the most emi- 
nent financiers and statesmen as ministers and ad- 
visers; but their policies and remedies availed 
nothing. In 1787 he summoned the Notables, a 
body composed of great lords and prelates, but 
their coming together resulted in nothing." 
Finally, in great straits, he summoned " the States 
General, the almost forgotten assembly, composed 



134 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

of representatives of the three estates, — the nobil- 
ity, the clergy, and the commons, the latter being 
known as the Tiers Etat, or Third Estate." (2) 
The States General met at Versailles, May 5, 
1789, a memorable date in the annals of France. 
For five weeks a quarrel about voting by orders, 
as demanded by the Commons and opposed by 
the other orders, kept the assembly from doing 
business. Finally the Commons, emboldened by 
the tone of public opinion, declared themselves the 
National Assembly, and, after inviting the other 
orders to join them, met in one of the churches at 
Versailles. While this assembly, which had now 
really become France's " national" assembly, was 
in session, Paris, angered by alarming rumors, be- 
came a raging mob and razed the old Bastile, or 
Paris prison, to the ground. This was a death- 
knell to Bourbon despotism and tyranny in gen- 
eral, and the massacre of royal supporters which 
followed caused what is known as the emigration 
of nobles. A few months after the destruction of 
the Bastile, and while the National Assembly was 
still at work in Versailles, a second Paris mob, 
frenzied by rumors and royal imprudence, surged 
out of the city into Versailles, captured the royal 
family, and, on returning to Paris, placed them in 
the Palace of the Tuileries, charging Lafayette 
to guard the king, who was kept as a sort of pris- 
oner until the proposed new constitution could be 
formed. The king, hoping to put himself at the 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 135 

head of the emigrant nobles, and, by the help of 
foreign aid, to overthrow the national assembly, 
carefully planned to flee. He escaped from the 
Tuileries with the royal family, but was arrested 
on the frontier of France and carried back to 
Paris. On the 14th of September, 1791, a new 
constitution, framed by the National Assembly, 
and making France a constitutional monarchy, 
was signed by the king. The assembly adjourned, 
and *' the first scene in the drama of the French 
Revolution was ended." (3) "The new consti- 
tution called for a Legislative Assembly. This 
body, comprising seven hundred and forty-five 
members, was divided into three parties, — the 
Constitutionalists, the Girondists, and the Moun- 
tainists." Many of the Mountainists, or radical 
republicans, were also members of the Jacobin 
Club or that of the Cordeliers. The kings of 
Europe watched France with anxiety, and re- 
solved to crush its revolutionary party. Alarmed 
at the warlike preparations of Prussia and Aus- 
tria, the French Legislative Assembly declared war 
against them (1792). A little later the alHed 
armies of the Austrians and Prussians passed the 
frontiers of France. Emboldened by their first 
successes, the allies threatened Paris. Frantic with 
rage, and blaming the king for their woes, the 
Parisians massacred the Swiss Guards and seized 
the royal family in the Tuileries. To the mas- 
sacre of the Swiss Guards was added a massacre 



136 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

of all royalists confined in jails. The armies of 
the allies were nearing Paris, but were finally 
checked and completely defeated by the French 
generals at Valmy (September 20, 1792). ''The 
day after this victory the Legislative Assembly 
came to an end, and the following day the National 
Convention assembled." (4) The National Con- 
vention consisted entirely of republicans. With- 
out discussing the abolition of Royalty France was 
at once proclaimed a Republic (September 21, 
1792). The Convention made sweeping changes, 
and even called upon all nations to rise against 
despotism. Convicted of conspiracy against 
France, Louis XVI. was executed on the scaf- 
fold (January 21, 1793). The monarchs of 
Europe stood aghast, and France was again 
threatened with invasion. Beset with foes with- 
out, the republic was threatened with even more 
dangerous enemies within. The Convention was 
equal to all emergencies. The Girondists, op- 
posing all communistic measures in the Conven- 
tion, were seized and massacred. The mob had 
become master of France; wild anarchy, the 
Reign of Terror, had begun. (5) The Con- 
vention of this First Republic of France vested 
supreme power in a so-called Committee of Pub- 
lic Safety, whose president was Marat, an incar- 
nation of hell itself. Danton and Robespierre, 
brutes like Marat himself, were members of the 
Committee. Thus was inaugurated the Reign of 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 137 

Terror. Suspects of every kind were hurried to 
the guillotine. Charlotte Corday, believing that 
Marat's death would help France, stabbed him in 
his rooms. It was all in vain. " The rage of 
the revolutionists was at this moment turned 
anew against the remaining members of the 
royal family, proclaiming the Dauphin King of 
France." Among the first to suffer was the lovely 
Marie Antoinette. Others followed her in rapid 
succession. Sweeping changes were made in the 
customs of France. Christianity was abolished, 
and a Goddess of Reason set up instead. By and 
by the Terrorists began to exterminate each other. 
To make his own power supreme, Robespierre re- 
solved to crush Hebert and Danton. " His ambi- 
tion was attained. He stood alone on the awful 
eminence of the mountain." '' One of the first 
acts of the dictator was to give France a new re- 
ligion in place of the worship of Reason." " At 
the same time that Robespierre was establishing 
a new religion, he was desolating France with mas- 
sacres of incredible atrocity, and ruling by a ter- 
rorism unparalleled since the most frightful days 
of Rome." Three months were passing. Reaction 
came. France began to turn with horror and pity 
from the scenes of the guillotine. Some one dared 
to denounce Robespierre at a meeting of the Con- 
vention. " The spell was broken," and the mon- 
ster's head fell July 28, 1794. The Reign of Ter- 
ror was over, and better conditions established. 



138 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

Among other things, Christianity and the Chris- 
tian Sabbath were at once restored. But the scat- 
tered forces of the Terrorists reorganized and, 
forty thousand strong, they attacked the Tuileries, 
where the Convention was in session (October 5, 
1795)- The mob was scattered by the young and 
dashing Corsican, — Napoleon Bonaparte. " The 
Revolution had at last brought forth a man of 
genius capable of controlling and directing its 
tremendous energies." (6) ''A few weeks after 
the defence of the Convention by Napoleon, that 
body declaring its labors ended, closed its sessions, 
and immediately afterwards the Councils and 
Board of Directors provided for by the new 
constitution, that had been framed by the Con- 
vention, assumed control of affairs." Under this 
Board of Directors, or Directory, the republic 
entered upon an aggressive policy. A republic 
herself, France longed to make all nations re- 
publics. The French armies were everywhere 
welcomed as deliverers. Short-lived republics, 
among them that of Switzerland, were rapidly 
established. " Austria and England were the 
only formidable powers that opposed the Direc- 
tory openly." The Directors, to stop all opposi- 
tion, determined to raise three armies. One of 
these was placed in the hands of Napoleon, to 
whom was assigned the work of driving the Aus- 
trians out of Italy. He gained the surprising vic- 
tories of Arcole and Rivoli, and forced Francis II. 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 139 

to sign the important peace of Campo Formio 
(1797). Paris honored the returning victor with 
ovations such as had not been seen since the days 
of Rome. The jealous and suspecting Directory, 
to remove him from France, accepted his plan 
to worry England in Egypt. Here he won the 
famous battle of the Pyramids, but the English 
admiral Nelson had just destroyed his fleet in the 
bay of Aboukir, at the mouth of the Nile (1798). 
" In the spring of 1799, Napoleon led his army 
into Syria, the Porte having joined in a new coali- 
tion against France." Bitterly disappointed be- 
cause he could not capture Acre, defended as it 
was by the brave Sydney, he led his army back into 
Egypt, and there, near Aboukir, he won a brilliant 
victory over a fresh Turkish army. During Napo- 
leon's absence the Directory had established sev- 
eral new republics, but the leading states of 
Europe, encouraged by Nelson's victory, had 
formed a new coalition against France, and in the 
war which followed French reverses had made the 
Directory very unpopular. " News of the desper- 
ate affairs at home reached Napoleon just after his 
victory in Egypt, following his return from Syria. 
Confiding the command of his army to Kleber, he 
set sail for France, where he received a most en- 
couraging welcome in his plot to overthrow the 
Directory." Meeting with opposition in the Coun- 
cil of Five Hundred, Napoleon, with a body of 
grenadiers, drove the deputies from their chamber 



I40 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

(November 9, 1799). A new constitution, sub- 
mitted and approved by the people, transformed 
the repubHc into a veiled monarchy, with Napoleon 
as First Consul. (7) The consulate of Napoleon 
was, if anything, more repugnant to Europe than 
the Directory of the First Republic. Austria and 
England refused to acknowledge the government of 
the usurper. Napoleon again mustered his armies. 
Crossing the Alps, he defeated the Austrians at 
Marengo, and Italy lay at Napoleon's feet again 
(June 14, 1800). Kleber, however, was assas- 
sinated and Egypt lost. But Moreau, the great 
general of Napoleon, defeating the Austrians at 
Hohenlinden, opened the way to Vienna. The 
treaty of Luneville made the Rhine the eastern 
boundary of France. Napoleon now (1801) 
turned his attention to the internal development of 
France, laying the basis of a grand school system, 
promoting the interests of the church, and promul- 
gating a system of laws which has since become 
fundamental in France, Holland, Belgium, West- 
ern Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. France 
was simply delighted with the First Consul. A 
vote of the people made him emperor, 1804. (8) 
Crowning himself and his lovely Josephine in the 
famous church of Notre Dame, Napoleon I. had 
become absolutely intolerable to the monarchies 
of Europe. Great coalitions were formed against 
the First Empire, with England always at the head 
of Napoleon's enemies. War came. " It was the 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 141 

war of the giants. To relate in detail the cam- 
paigns of Napoleon from Austerlitz to Waterloo 
would require the space of volumes." We shall 
have to content ourselves with the mere thread of 
events. In 1805 he humbled Austria at Auster- 
litz, and completely changed the map of Europe. 
Lord Nelson's defeat of the French fleet at Tra- 
falgar gave the sovereignty of the ocean and its 
islands to England. In 1806 Napoleon humbled 
Prussia, and in 1807 Russia. ^' By two celebrated 
imperial decrees, called from the cities whence they 
were issued the Berlin and the Milan decree, he 
closed all the ports of the continent against English 
ships, and forbade any of the European nations 
from holding any intercourse with Great Britain, 
all of whose ports he declared in a state of block- 
ade." This '' continental policy" brought him into 
conflict with Portugal and Spain, 1808. Napo- 
leon's brother obtained the Bourbon crown. The 
Peninsula revolted and, aided by Sir Arthur 
Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, drove 
the French beyond the Ebro. Napoleon, however, 
took the field again, and reseated his brother on 
the Spanish throne. Taking advantage of Napo- 
leon's troubles in the Peninsula, Francis I., of Aus- 
tria, declared war against the French emperor. It 
was all in vain. In 1809, after the battles of Eck- 
miihl and Wagram, Napoleon a second time en- 
tered Vienna. The next year (1810) "Napoleon 
divorced his wife Josephine, in order to form a 



142 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

new alliance with Maria Louisa, Archduchess of 
Austria." In 1811 ''Napoleon was at the height 
of his marvellous fortunes. Marengo, Austerlitz, 
Jena, Friedland, and Wagram were the successive 
steps by which he had mounted to the most dizzy 
heights of military power and glory." But there 
were elements of weakness which began to operate 
his ruin. Among these were his " continental pol- 
icy," his unpopular divorce, his nepotism, and the 
heterogeneous constitution of his vast domains. 
The Czar of Russia entered a coalition against him. 
Therefore, in 181 2, " Napoleon crossed the fron- 
tiers of Russia, at the head of what was proudly 
called the Grand Army, numbering more than half 
a million of men." He got as far as Moscow, 
which he found deserted. Unable to hold the place, 
and too proud to accept proposals of peace, he be- 
gan his fatal retreat. Who can describe Napo- 
leon's retreat. Leaving the remnants of a shat- 
tered army to his marshals, he hurried to Paris, 
raised an army, but was defeated in the famous 
battle of the nations at Leipsic (1813). The 
armies of the allied forces of Europe now poured 
over all the French frontiers. " Paris surrendered 
to the allies." Napoleon was " forced to abdicate, 
and the ancient house of Bourbon was re-estab- 
lished in the person of a brother of Louis XVL, 
who took the title of Louis XVIII. Napoleon 
was banished to the little island of Elba, west of 
Italy. 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 143 

Louis XVIII. " After the overthrow of Napo- 
leon, Commissioners of the different European 
states met at Vienna to readjust the map." While 
they were still in session (1815), Napoleon, in- 
spired by reports of the despotism and unpopular- 
ity of Louis XVIIL, landed with a few followers 
at one of the southern ports of France, rousing the 
whole country with one of his stirring addresses, 
and then immediately pushing on towards Paris. 
His old generals and soldiers embraced him with 
transports of joy. Louis XVIIL, deserted by his 
army, was left helpless, and, as Napoleon ap- 
proached the gates of Paris, he fled from his 
throne. Then (June 18, 181 5) came the world- 
famous battle of Waterloo in Belgium. Here, 
after breaking his columns all day upon the English 
squares. Napoleon had to yield to Wellington, 
reinforced at the critical moment by Blucher 
with thirty thousand Prussians. Knowing that 
Grouchy, the general upon whose arrival in time 
French success might have been possible, must have 
been intercepted by Blucher, Napoleon galloped 
from the field and fled. All was lost. Napoleon 
was exiled by the English to St. Helena, where he 
had time to reflect on all his glories and all his 
follies. Louis XVIIL, returning, finished his 
reign, dying in 1824. 

Charles X. A brother of Louis XVI. and 
Louis XVIIL now succeeded to the throne of the 
restored Bourbons, 1824. He, like all the Bour- 



144 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

bons, was a despot. In 1830 " the people rose in 
revolt, and by one of those sudden movements for 
which Paris is so noted, the despot was driven into 
exile, and Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, was 
placed upon the throne." 

Louis PhUippe. A new constitution was 
adopted, and the French people, for a while at 
least, were happy under their " Citizen King." 
" Up to 1848 the reign of Louis Philippe was very 
quiet. Finally, in 1848, some unpopular measures 
of the government caused an uprising similar to 
that of 1830. Louis Philippe, under the assumed 
name of Mr. Smith, fled to England. The Second 
Republic was now established." 

Second Republic. An election made Louis 
Napoleon, nephew of the great Napoleon, president 
of the new republic, December 20, 1848. He fol- 
lowed the governmental policy of his uncle. Dis- 
sensions having arisen between himself and the 
legislative assembly, he suddenly dissolved that 
body, placed its leaders under arrest, and then ap- 
pealed to the country to endorse what he had done. 
The next year (1852) he was made emperor, and 
took the title of Napoleon III. 

Napoleon III. The important political events 
of the Second Empire were the Crimean War, the 
Austro-Sardinian War, and the Franco-Prussian 
War. Of the first two we are to write by and by. 
*' The real causes of the Franco-Prussian War 
were French jealousy of the growing power of 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 145 

Prussia, and the emperor's anxiety to strengthen 
his government in the affections of the French 
people by reviving the miHtary glory of the reign 
of his great uncle." When Prussia allowed Prince 
Leopold, of Hohenzollern, to become a candidate 
for the vacant throne of Spain, the French found 
their final pretext for war. Prussia was invaded. 
The French were pushed back and defeated. After 
the capture of the strong fortress of Sedan, where 
the emperor himself was imprisoned, the Prussians 
marched upon Paris, forcing that city, after an 
investment of a few months, to capitulate (1871). 
The terms of the treaty caused a reign of terror, 
but '' the government at length succeeded in sup- 
pressing the anarchists and restoring order." Thus 
was born the Third Republic of France. 

Third Republic. M. Thiers, the historian, 
was made the first president, 1871. The French 
people are learning to govern themselves. The 
country is making rapid progress in education and 
all the departments of civilization. At this writing 
Loubet, a very able statesman, is the French presi- 
dent. 

ENGLAND 

The first civilized rulers of the British isles, as 
we should here try to recall, were the Romans. 
Then came the Anglo-Saxons, producing such 
kings as Egbert and Alfred the Great, with both of 
whom the history student should be well ac- 
quainted. The Danes followed under Canute, a 

10 



146 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

noble man indeed. After a brief restoration of the 
Anglo-Saxons, in the person of Edward the Con- 
fessor, came the battle of Hastings (1066), and 
the Norman kings from France, bringing with 
them an improved feudal system. The Plantag- 
enet branch of the Norman line continued in power, 
in spite of the stout feudal opposition to their des- 
potism, until 1485, when, as conqueror on the 
battle-field of Bosworth, Henry Tudor became 
Henry VH. Feudalism had received its death- 
blow and absolute monarchy had come. The Tu- 
dor line ended with Elizabeth's death, 1603. 
" With the end of the Tudor line, James VI. of 
Scotland, son of Mary Stuart, came to the English 
throne as James I." " The Stuarts were firm be- 
lievers in the ' divine right' of kings. They held 
that hereditary princes are the Lord's anointed, 
and that their authority can in no way be ques- 
tioned or limited by people, priest, or Parliament." 
The most extravagant claims of the Stuarts, such 
as the '' Royal Touch," seemed to go unchallenged 
by the people over whom the Stuarts were to rule. 
We shall soon see, however, that in England, as in 
France, the claim to " divine rights" on the part of 
rulers must yield to the divine rights of the people. 
James I. Disappointed at the course which 
James I. had taken in religious matters, Guy 
Fawkes plotted to blow up the Parliament Building 
on the opening day of the Session. This " Gun- 
powder Plot" of 1605, although it was unsuccess- 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 147 

ful, had very serious results. Among the inter- 
esting things in connection with the reign of James 
I. are the colonial settlements of Jamestown and 
Plymouth, in America, and the trade settlement of 
the East India Company at Surat. The main fea- 
ture of his reign, however, was the constant quar- 
rel with Parliament about the limits of royal power 
in matters of legislation, the collection of customs, 
free debates by the Commons, etc. Among the 
noteworthy literary productions of this period is 
the so-called King James's version of the Bible. 
Sir Walter Raleigh and Francis Bacon are the 
conspicuous writers of James's reign. 

Charles I. ( i ) '' Charles I. came to the 
throne with all his father's lofty notions about the 
divine right of kings." After some preliminary 
skirmishes, Parliament forced him to sign a cer- 
tain Petition of Rights, reaffirming the provisions 
of the famous Magna Charta. The things against 
which this Petition stood in particular were arbi- 
trary imprisonment, the quartering of soldiers in 
private houses, and trial without jury. To punish 
Parliament for its audacity he undertook to rule 
without it for eleven years. His unscrupulous 
agents were his ministers, Thomas Wentworth and 
William Laud. The tyrannical proceedings of the 
king and his agents were enforced by certain des- 
potic courts known as the Council of the North, 
dealing with the turbulent northern counties of 
England; the infamous Star Chamber, dealing 



148 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

chiefly with criminal cases affecting the govern- 
ment; and the High Commission Court, to enforce 
the acts of Supremacy and Conformity. John 
Hampden's trial by the Star Chamber is particu- 
larly illustrative of Charles's method. (2) The 
king tried hard to impose the English liturgy upon 
the Scotch Presbyterians. Banded into an associa- 
tion known as Covenanters, the Scots undertook 
to defend their faith. To meet the Scottish forces, 
who finally crossed the border into England, 
Charles was forced (1640) to summon the two 
Houses of Parliament. Instead of dealing first 
with the king's requests for money, etc., the House 
of Commons impeached Strafford and Laud, abol- 
ished the three iniquitous courts of Charles, and 
enacted a law preventing their adjournment or 
dissolution without their own consent. The king 
was furious. Attempting to arrest the leaders 
of this so-called Long Parliament, Hampden and 
Pym, the king precipitated civil war, 1642. (3) 
The Royalists, or Cavaliers, were defeated in 
several famous battles, as at Marston Moor and 
Naseby, by the Parliamentarians, or Roundheads, 
under the leadership of the redoubtable Oliver 
Cromwell with his Puritan Ironsides, organized 
into the famous ^' New Model" army. Worsted at 
Naseby, the king fled to the Scots, but was sur- 
rendered to the Parliament. There were many in 
the Parliament who favored the unconditional res- 
toration of Charles to his throne, but Pride's purge 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 149 

left the Independents masters of the House of 
Commons. The Commons, thus reduced to about 
forty independents, condemned the king on charges 
of tyranny, etc. His head fell on the executioner's 
block, 1649. (4) The " Rump Parliament," or 
what was left of the Long Parliament after Colo- 
nel Pride's " purge," now abolished monarchy and 
the House of Lords, making England a republic, 
under the name of " The Commonwealth," with 
Oliver Cromwell as its real head. The new re- 
public was soon almost overwhelmed with trouble, 
but Cromwell, by his summary dealing with Ire- 
land and by his famous victories over the Scots at 
Dunbar and Worcester, succeeded not only in over- 
awing his opponents but in commanding Conti- 
nental respect. (5) In 1653, while England was 
still at war with Holland, Cromwell came to an 
open quarrel with the Rump Parliament and drove 
them, out at the sword's point. The Little Parlia- 
ment, or Praise-God-Bare-Bone Parliament, which 
he called, did some good work, but, before the year 
had ended, resigned all its powers into Cromwell's 
hands. He had virtually become a dictator. The 
" Lord Protector," as he was now called, was a 
harsh and despotic dictator in his administration 
of affairs, but " he gave England the strongest, 
and in many respects the best, government she had 
had since the days of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth." 
Troubled by the perplexities of his position, and 
undermined in health by overwork and anxiety, he 



I50 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

finally lay down to die (September 3, 1658). His 
weak son Richard became the head of the Protec- 
torate, but after a few months resigned his power. 
" For some months after the fall of the Protector- 
ate the country trembled on the verge of anarchy. 
The great mass of the English people earnestly 
desired the restoration of the Monarchy. Charles, 
the son of Charles L, was finally invited by both 
the army and Parliament to return to the throne 
of his ancestors ( 1660) ." The religious side of the 
English revolution, which thus ended in the res- 
toration of the Stuarts, is best understood by a 
careful study of Puritan literature. Among the 
best works are Milton's " Paradise Lost," and John 
Bunyan's " Pilgrim's Progress." 

Charles II. On succeeding to his father's 
throne, Charles 11. punished the regicides and dis- 
banded the " New Model," retaining in his service 
three carefully chosen regiments, to which he gave 
the name of Guards. The services of the Anglican 
Church were restored by Parliament, and non-con- 
formists were harshly treated. The Scotch Cove- 
nanters fared worst of all. A secret treaty with his 
cousin Louis XIV. to restore England to Rome in 
religion finally became known. The open secret 
made England very uneasy. Excitement produced 
by a supposed plot to massacre the Protestants " led 
Parliament to pass what was called the Test Act, 
which excluded Catholics from the House of 
Lords." There were many in both Houses who 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 151 

were determined to exclude the Duke of York, 
brother of Charles XL, from the throne. This divi- 
sion of sentiment was the origin of the Tories, who 
favored the duke's succession, and the Whigs, who 
objected. 

James 11. When Charles II. died the Tories suc- 
ceeded in giving the succession to his brother, and 
he became James II. (1685). This man at once 
began to play the despot in state and in church. 
The course of the king raised up enemies on all 
sides. The birth of a prince, cutting off the hope 
of the nation that Mary Stuart, the Protestant wife 
of William, the Prince of Orange, might be the 
next ruler, hastened the crisis. Parliament invited 
William to take forcible possession of the govern- 
ment. The concessions of the hitherto infatuated 
king came too late. He was absolutely deserted. 
The Prince of Orange had come, and James must 
flee. The Convention which William called con- 
ferred " the royal dignity upon William and his 
wife Mary as joint sovereigns of the realm.'' 
After signing the celebrated '' Declaration of 
Rights," which guaranteed many invaluable rights, 
the two were declared king and queen of England. 
Thus was effected what is known as the " Revolu- 
tion of 1688," the causes for which are faithfully 
reflected in the literature of the Restoration. 
Among the most famous works are Butler's 
"Hudibras" and the "Don Quixote," by Cer- 
vantes. 



152 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

William and Mary, (i) ''The Revolution 
of 1688 and the settlement of the crown upon 
William and Mary mark an epoch in the consti- 
tutional history of England. It settled forever the 
long dispute between king and Parliament. The 
Bill of Rights, — the articles of the Declaration of 
Rights fram.ed into a law, — which was one of the 
earliest acts of the first Parliament under William 
and Mary, in effect transferred sovereignty from 
the king to the House of Commons." Other im- 
portant enactments followed and became parts of 
the present constitution of England. (2) William 
and Mary had a good deal of trouble with the 
Jacobites, or supporters of the exiled James II. 
James was also aided by his cousin Louis XIV. 
The decisive battle of the Boyne gave England 
rest from James. (3) William, however, to pun- 
ish Louis XIV. for his support of James, persuaded 
England to take sides against Louis in the war 
of the Spanish Succession. William died before 
this war was over, and, his wife Mary also having 
died, her sister Anne succeeded to the English 
throne. 

Anne. ( i ) " The war of the Spanish Suc- 
cession covered the whole of the reign of Queen 
Anne." (2) From 1707 on England and Scotland 
were united into one kingdom, under the name of 
Great Britain, and represented by one Parliament. 
(3) "The reign of Queen Anne is an illustrious 
one in English literature." Among those writers 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 153 

who best represent the poHtics of Queen Anne's 
time are Pope, Swift, Addison, and Defoe. Sir 
Isaac Newton made this period famous through 
the pubHcation of his scientific treatise, the " Prin- 
cipia." (4) Anne died in 1714, leaving no heirs. 
In accordance with the Act of Settlement passed 
in William's reign the elector of Hanover now be- 
came king of England under the title of George I. 
The House of Hanover rules England to-day. 

George I. The new king was " utterly igno- 
rant of the language and the affairs of the people 
over whom he had been called to rule." England 
simply tolerated him because he " represented 
Protestantism and those principles of political lib- 
erty for which they had so long battled with the 
Stuart kings." The Whigs had everything their 
own way in the reign of George I. 

George II. George II. " continued his father's 
domestic policy of favoring the Whigs," and re- 
tained his father's prime minister Walpole. In the 
interests of his beloved Hanover, he took the side 
of Maria Theresa against Frederick the Great in 
the first and second Silesian wars. " The last years 
of the king's reign saw the British armies victo- 
rious in India and in Canada, and the British fleet 
in control of the seas." 

George III. Born and educated in England, 
" George III. regained some of the old influence 
of former kings." Lord North and the younger 
Pitt were the most notable of his prime ministers. 



154 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

The Treaty of Paris (1763) gave him Canada and 
Florida, but he lost the Thirteen Colonies of Amer- 
ica, and was again defeated by the United States 
in 1 8 12. The last years of his reign were spent in 
hopeless insanity. He died in 1820, having been 
king of Great Britain for sixty years. 

Geoi-ge IV. Although he had allied himself 
with the Whigs as Prince of Wales, he preferred 
the Tory side as king. His divorce history is a 
record of shame. " The chief event of his reign 
was the passage of the Emancipation Act," 1829. 
He died in 1830. 

Waiiam IV. The "sailor king," William 
IV., was the brother of George IV. " The chief 
events of his reign were the passage of the Reform 
Bill" (1832), correcting various evils of a corrupt 
and farcical system of sending representatives from 
" pocket boroughs" to the House of Commons ; 
and the Emancipation Bill (1833), abolishing 
slavery from British domains. He died in 1837, 
and was succeeded by Victoria, a granddaughter 
of George III. 

Victoria. Almost everything of importance in 
the modern history of England belongs to Queen 
Victoria's long reign of nearly sixty-four years. 
The leading events of her reign may be summed 
up under three heads, — progress towards democ- 
racy ; expansion of the principle of religious equal- 
ity ; and growth of the British Empire in the East. 
(i) " While the Reform Bill of 1832 was almost 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 155 

revolutionary in the principle it established, it went 
only a little way in the application of the principle. 
It admitted to the franchise the middle classes only. 
The great laboring class were given no part in the 
government." Thus arose " Chartism," an agita- 
tion demanding " universal suffrage, vote by ballot, 
annual parliaments, the division of the country into 
equal electoral districts, the abolition of the prop- 
erty qualification of members, and payment for 
their services." In 1848 the Chartists were sup- 
pressed by the queen's show of force, but the most 
important of their demands have since become a 
part of the English Constitution. The Reform Bill 
of 1867 extended the right of voting to the masses. 
In 1884, through Gladstone, the prime minister, 
the great agricultural classes were enfranchised. 
In 1886 he introduced a bill granting Ireland the 
right of making her own laws, but this " Home 
Rule" for Ireland has thus far not been granted by 
England. (2) "Alongside the political move- 
ment traced in the preceding section has run a 
similar one in the religious realm." " At the open- 
ing of the nineteenth century there was in England 
religious freedom, but no religious equality." 
Catholics, Jews, and all who did not hold to the 
Anglican Church were debarred from many civil 
rights and privileges. The number of dissenting 
Protestants increased very rapidly in the reign of 
George III., through the reform labors of Whit- 
field and Wesley. The movement soon commanded 



156 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

respect. In 1828, during the reign of George IV., 
the provision requiring persons holding office to be 
communicants of the Anghcan Church, was re- 
pealed. The next year, chiefly through the elo- 
quent Daniel O'Connell, the Catholic Emancipa- 
tion Act opened nearly all the offices below the 
crown to Catholics. Since 1858 the House of 
Commons, and just lately the House of Lords, 
has been opened to the Jews. As yet growth 
in the religious equality of British subjects does 
not extend to its desired perfection. Ireland, it 
is true, was emancipated from the Anglican 
Church in 1869, chiefly through Gladstone, but 
Scotland is stiU waiting for her release. (3) 
Within the last three centuries England has 
established a world-empire, the sun never setting 
on her dominions. She gained foothold in India 
before the close of the seventeenth century, chiefly 
through the East India Company. About the mid- 
dle of the eighteenth century France had a better 
hold on India than England. The story of the 
Black Hole of Calcutta illustrates the difficulties 
of the situation. Lord Clive's victory at Plassey 
(1757) gave England the upper hand in India. 
England has watched Russia's encroachments upon 
Asia ever since. " It was England's policy to 
maintain the Afghan state as a barrier between her 
and East India" that produced the ill-starred Af- 
ghan war of 1838 to 1842. Then followed the 
opium war of 1840 to 1842, in which England 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 157 

forced China to submit to the iniquitous opium 
traffic between India and China. To keep Russia 
from seizing Constantinople and the Bosphorus, 
and from controlling Asia through the Eastern 
Mediterranean, England became a party against 
Russia in the Crimean War of 1854 to 1856. The 
Sepoy mutiny followed in 1857, ^^'^^ was over 
before the close of 1858. In 1877 Queen Victoria 
finally became Empress of India. Within the last 
century England has entered the race for the con- 
trol of Africa. In order to protect her interest in 
the Suez canal, as a gate-way to her East India 
possessions, England has had several serious af- 
fairs on hand in Egypt. Her calamitous war with 
the Boers for the possession of Africa began in 
1898 and has just been concluded ( 1902), England 
compensating the conquered Boers in various gen- 
erous ways for their loss of independence. Proba- 
bly the world has never had a more illustrious 
queen than Victoria. Giant statesmen made it pos- 
sible for her to develop the domestic and colonial 
resources of England, perfect her already excellent 
constitutional government, and command a voice 
in the world's affairs. Lord Tennyson, Canon 
Farrar, Gladstone, George Eliot, and other great 
modern authors have made the Victorian Age of 
literature a very glorious one. 

Edward VII. ( i ) The reign of Edward VIL, 
son of Queen Victoria and Albert, began amid the 
gloom of war-reverses in Africa, 1901. Lord Sal- 



158 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

isbury, his mother's great prime minister after 
Gladstone's death, was retained, but, since his late 
resignation, has been succeeded by Lord Balfour, 
a very able statesman. (2) The most important 
event of Edward's reign was the successful con- 
clusion of the war with the Boers. Edward has 
endeared himself to his people in various ways, 
and his diplomatic attitude in his country's inter- 
national affairs commands respect. On the 9th of 
August, 1902, Edward was crowned in Westmin- 
ster Abbey as Edward VI L and Emperor of India. 
His beautiful queen, Alexandra, and the munificent 
gift of the Osborne House to the nation, help to 
make Edward very popular. (3) With excep- 
tionally able counsellors in both Houses of Parlia- 
ment, an immense army and navy, an intelligent 
and moral people, and almost inexhaustible mate- 
rial resources, the reign of Edward bids fair to 
rival that of his illustrious mother. Queen Victoria. 

GERMANY 

The first line of German kings, as we should 
recall at this time, were Carlovingians, the descend- 
ants of Charlemagne. Then came the Saxon em- 
perors, restoring the Holy Roman Empire in the 
tenth century. The Franconian emperors of the 
eleventh century are best represented by the quarrel 
of Henry IV. with Pope Gregory, or Hildebrand. 
The Hohenstaufen emperors of the twelfth century 
were crusaders, who also built great cathedrals and 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 159 

quarrelled with popes. The House of Austria, or 
Hapsburg line, beginning with Albert's election in 
1438, partly solidified the feudal aggregation of 
German states into a loosely bound empire, and 
thus closed the Middle Ages in Germany. In 141 5 
Frederick Hohenzollern purchased the Electorate 
of Brandenburg from the Hapsburg Emperor Sig- 
ismund, and thus laid the foundation of the ruling 
house of Germany to-day. In the mean time the 
Austrian house continued in power all through the 
century of the Reformation, the most noted em- 
peror being Charles L, whom we met in connection 
with Spain, France, and the Netherlands. In 161 1 
the small states of Brandenburg and Prussia were 
united under one ruler. From that time forward 
Prussia under its Hohenzollern rulers rapidly as- 
sumed control of Germany as we think of it to-day. 
In 1640, near the close of the Thirty Years' War, 
in which Prussia had not played a very worthy 
part, Frederick William became the Elector of 
Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia. He is better 
known as the " Great Elector," because '' he laid 
the basis of the military power of Prussia by the 
formation of a standing army, and transmitted to 
his son and successor a strongly centralized and 
despotic government." The German people cele- 
brate the Great Elector's fame to-day with literary 
and sculptural monuments. 

Kings of Prussia, (i) Through military ser- 
vices, which the Great Elector's son Frederick was 



i6o GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

able to render to the Austrian emperor in the war 
of the Spanish Succession, he became Frederick I. 
of Prussia. " The event is a landmark in German, 
and even European, history." (2) His son, Fred- 
erick William I., is best remembered in connection 
with his Potsdam Giants, a famous body-guard of 
two thousand four hundred men, and for his habit 
of caning idlers. " Rough, brutal tyrant though 
he was, Frederick William was an able and ener- 
getic ruler." He left an army of eighty thousand 
men to his son. (3) His son as Frederick H. be- 
came Frederick the Great through his two wars 
with the Austrian queen Maria Theresa for the 
possession of Silesia. There were times when this 
poetic sceptic, who seemed to love no one except 
his mother, could hardly hope to win against the 
heavy national odds with which he had to contend 
in these wars, but he came out with great glory. 
The famous windmill of Potsdam, the royal resi- 
dence of German kings, as well as his palace there, 
still speak loudly of Frederick's love of fair play 
and of his luxurious tastes. He lies buried, side by 
side with his father, under the pulpit of a Potsdam 
church. (4) A nephew of Frederick the Great 
succeeded him in 1786, as Frederick William H. 
** He formed an alliance with Austria in 1792 for 
the purpose of restoring Louis XVL of France, 
but concluded the separate peace of Basel with the 
revolutionary government of France in 1795. He 
took part in the second and third partitions of Po- 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS i6i 

land." (5) In 1797 the son of Frederick William 
11. became Frederick William III. " He refused 
to join the third coalition against France in 1805; 
declared war against France in 1806; signed the 
treaty of Tilsit in 1807; joined France against 
Russia in 181 2; joined in the war of Liberation 
in 1 81 3; was present at the Congress of Vienna 
in 1815; and joined the Holy AUiance in 1815." 
(6) Frederick William IV., son of Frederick 
William III., became his father's successor in 1840. 
" He was compelled by a revolutionary movement 
in 1848 to grant a constitution, and in 1849 ^^" 
clined the imperial crown offered him by the Ger- 
man National Assembly at Frankfort. As he was 
rendered incompetent to reign by a serious malady, 
his brother (afterwards William I.) became regent 
in 1858." 

We return to 181 5 in order to trace the growtH 
of freedom and unity of Germany as we have it 
to-day. ( I ) In that year '' the German states, 
thirty-nine in number, were organized by the Con- 
gress of Vienna as a Confederation, with the 
emperor of Austria president of the league." 
" Though Austria was nominally the head of the 
Confederation, Prussia was actually the most pow- 
erful member of the league." The rulers of the 
German states thus confederated " refused or neg- 
lected to carry out in good faith that article of the 
Confederation which provided for representative 
governments in all the German states." By the 



i62 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

revolutionary demands of 1830 liberal constitutions 
were secured by the people of several German 
states. (2) The first step towards the real union 
of German states came through a commercial treaty 
to which eventually all the states except Austria 
acceded. The policy of free trade thus adopted in 
this so-called Customs Union " taught the people 
to think of a more perfect national union, and, as 
Prussia was a prominent promoter and centre of 
the trade confederation, it accustomed the Germans 
to look to her as their head and chief." (3) The 
revolutionary demands of 1848 gave practically all 
the German states liberal constitutions. (4) 
Through the obstinate despotism and ambition of 
Prince Metternich, the prime minister of the Aus- 
trian emperor, Austria missed her opportunity to 
compete with Prussia for the leadership among the 
German states. While Austria was busy (1848- 
1849) '^^ suppressing her revolting subjects of 
Hungary, the champion of whose liberty was the 
illustrious Kossuth, Prussia succeeded in uniting 
some of the German states into an alliance called 
the " German Union." This movement led Austria 
to form a similar union. At this moment the 
German states were grouped about Prussia and 
Austria like the Grecian states were grouped 
about Athens and Sparta at the opening of 
the Peloponnesian War. War was inevitable. 
(5) Prince Bismarck, the "Iron Chancellor" of 
William I. of Prussia, saw that the rivalry between 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 163 

Prussia and Austria could be settled only " by 
blood and iron." The Austro-Prussian war, as it 
is called, began in 1866. Prussia was well pre- 
pared, and her well-disciplined army, under the 
command of the great general Moltke, easily won 
the famous battle of Sadowa, in Bohemia. Seven 
weeks of war had ended the long debate and 
" Prussia was now without a rival in Germany." 
Moved by this victory the Northern states of Ger- 
many, with Prussia as their head, were organized 
into the North-German Union, but the Southern 
states were as yet quite out of sympathy with Prus- 
sia. (6) Then came the quarrel with jealous 
France, the Franco-Prussian War of 1 870-1 871. 
The hero of Sadowa captured Napoleon III., as 
has been said, and besieged Paris, forcing the 
French to submit to a most humiliating peace. 
And " while the siege of Paris was progressing, 
commissioners were sent by the Southern states to 
Versailles, the head-quarters of King William, to 
represent to him the willingness of Baden, Bava- 
ria, and Wlirtemburg, to enter the North-German 
Union." '* Scarcely was this accomplished, when, 
upon the suggestion of the King of Bavaria, King 
William, who now bore the title of President of the 
Confederation, was given the title of German Em- 
peror, which honor was to be hereditary in his 
family. On the i8th of January, 1871, within the 
Palace of Versailles, the siege of Paris being still 



1 64 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

in progress," King William was crowned as Em- 
peror William I. of Germany. 

William I. The first emperor of United Ger- 
many was a man of great sagacity and high char- 
acter, and, in the few years which remained to him 
after his coronation as emperor, he administered 
the affairs of the new government with remarkable 
energy, seconded by the remarkable Chancellor 
Bismarck. 

Frederick I. The successor of William I. was 
his son Frederick I. (1888). He ruled only a few 
months. A fatal malady kept him from the execu- 
tion of a broad national policy. 

William II. (i) The son of Frederick I. suc- 
ceeded him in 1888 as William 11. Two years later 
(1890) this vigorous young ruler promptly dis- 
missed Prince Bismarck for opposing him in his 
policy of personally controlling the government. 
The determined German emperor has already made 
himself the idol of his people. His policy of gov- 
ernment is aggressive and intelligent. (2) The 
only event of political importance in his reign up 
to this time is the part which his government played 
in the late war of the Powers with China, his gen- 
erals taking part in the battles which led to the 
investment of Pekin. William H. is an ardent 
promoter of religion, education, commerce, and 
art. (3) With all the resources of a strong gov- 
ernment, a well-disciplined army, and a navy sec- 
ond only to that of England, William II., as the 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 165 

emperor of a nation capable of the highest attain- 
ments in civiHzation, must surely be reckoned with 
in the affairs of the twentieth century. 

RUSSIA. 

"We left Russia, at the close of the Middle 
Ages, a semi-savage, semi-Asiatic power, so 
hemmed in by barbarian lands and hostile races as 
to be almost entirely cut off from intercourse with 
the civilized world." (i) '' The royal line estab- 
lished in Russia by the old Norseman Rurik ended 
in 1589. Then followed a period of confusion and 
of foreign invasion, known as the Troublous 
Times, (2) after which a prince of the celebrated 
house of Romanoff came to the throne." 
" Towards the close of the seventeenth century 
there ascended the Russian throne a man whose 
capacity and energy and achievements instantly 
drew the gaze of his contemporaries, and who has 
elicited the admiration and wonder of all succeed- 
ing generations. This was Peter I., universally 
known as Peter the Great." 

Peter the Great. (i) This young man of 
seventeen years became Peter I. of Russia (1682). 
" Peter saw clearly that the need of his empire was 
outlets upon the sea." (2) In 1696 he succeeded 
in capturing Azof, and thus gained his first harbor 
on the south. (3) In 1697 he left the government 
in the hands of three nobles, and made his way to 
the Netherlands to study ship-building and West- 



1 66 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

ern civilization. He also visited England, and was 
royally treated by King William III., who had 
become England's sovereign in 1688. (4) On re- 
turning to Russia he literally Europeanized his 
country, and went even so far as to clothe his sub- 
jects with the very '' garments of Western civiliza- 
tion." Among his reforms were schools, a postal 
system. Western laws, and town governments. 
(5) Supposing that Charles XII,, the boy-king of 
Sweden, who had just come to the throne, could 
not defend his country successfully, Peter leagued 
with Poland and Denmark in 1700 to rob Charles 
of territory along the Southern Baltic. The con- 
spirators had miscalculated. In two weeks Charles 
had forced the Danish king to sue for peace, and 
shortly afterwards he won a brilliant victory over 
eighty thousand Russians at Narva, on the Gulf of 
Finland. The chastised Czar took his defeat hero- 
ically, and, while Charles was busy punishing Po- 
land, founded St. Petersburg (1703). Charles 
had pretty much his own way in Poland, but on 
crossing the frontiers of Russia the second time, he 
was ignominiously defeated at Pultowa (1709). 
" It was Charles's Waterloo." Returning from 
Turkey, whither he had escaped from Pultowa, he 
perished in the siege of Frederickshall, in Norway 
(1718). Charles, who had by this time earned 
the title of the " Madman of the North," thus died 
at the age of thirty-six years. (6) After the bat- 
tle of Pultowa Peter obtained his coveted strip of 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 167 

Baltic seaboard, and seized the south shore of the 
Caspian Sea. A fever ended his great and useful 
life at the age of fifty- four years (1725). It re- 
mains to be said that Peter the Great, quite con- 
trary to his intentions, introduced a civilization 
which fosters popular liberties, and undermines the 
personal, despotic government of the Czars. 

Catherine the Great. The next important 
ruler of Russia was a great but dreadful woman, 
Catherine XL, crowned 1762. She carried out the 
expansion policy inaugurated by Peter the Great. 
" The most noteworthy matters of her reign were 
the conquest of the Crimea and the dismemberment 
of Poland." The possession of the Crimean penin- 
sula gave Russia dominion on the Black Sea, and 
Poland became Catherine's " door-mat" into West- 
ern Europe. Her laws and patronage of letters, 
as well as her ruling powers, have won for Cathe- 
rine the title of '' Great." Through her influence 
Russia has become one of the foremost powers of 
Europe. She died in 1796. 

Alexander I. ( i ) " Upon the downfall of 
Napoleon, Alexander 1. (1801-1825) of Russia 
organized the celebrated union known as the Holy 
Alliance/' The chief members of this Alliance 
were Russia, Austria, and Prussia. (2) " Under 
the pretext of maintaining religion, justice, and 
order, the sovereigns of the union acted in concert 
to suppress every aspiration among their subjects 
for political liberty." Alexander had really meant 



1 68 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

to be a father to his people, but conspiracies among 
his own subjects and popular uprisings throughout 
Europe had gradually transformed him into a vio- 
lent absolutist, a czar in the worst sencsc of that 
word. " He spent all his later years in aiding the 
despotic rulers of Spain, Italy, and Germany to 
crush every uprising among their subjects for po- 
litical freedom." (3) The Liberals of Russia, the 
number of which had become very large through 
contact of Russian armies with Napoleonic Europe, 
were bitterly disappointed. 

Nicholas I. (i) In 1825 Alexander I. was suc- 
ceeded by his brother Nicholas I. (1825-1855), " a 
terrible incarnation of autocracy." Carrying out 
his brother's policy, he tried his best to cut loose 
from the liberalizing ideas of Western Europe. 
(2) In 1828 he declared war against Turkey, from 
whose despotic power little Greece was then trying 
to free herself. Had not the jealousy of England 
and Austria intervened, Nicholas would probably 
have captured Constantinople. As a result of ne- 
gotiations which followed, Russia gained territory 
and prestige, while Greece, whose guardians Eng- 
land, France, and Russia became, obtained her 
freedom. (3) Between the years 1830 and 1832 
Nicholas once more crushed the Poles. (4) Nich- 
olas was the uncompromising foe of Turkey, whose 
Sultan he called the " sick man," and whose estates 
he would gladly have divided with England. 
When the Sultan rejected his demand to protect 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 169 

Greek Christians in the Ottoman dominions, 
Nicholas prepared for war. Strange to say, Eng- 
land and France took the Sultan's side. England 
feared that if Russia got possession of the Bos- 
phorus her Eastern possessions would be endan- 
gered. France wanted to retrieve the disgrace of 
Moscow. Sardinia joined England and France 
through the policy of the far-sighted Cavour. 
Thus came the Crimean War ( 1 853-1 856 ) . " The 
main interest of the struggle centred about Sebas- 
topol, in the Crimea, Russia's great naval and mili- 
tary depot, and the key to the Euxine." It was 
in the long siege of Sebastopol that '' the English 
Light Brigade earned immortality in their memo- 
rable charge at Balaklava." The Russians had to 
yield at last. Among other important results, " the 
Christian population of the Turkish dominions 
were placed under the guardianship of the great 
powers, who were to see that the Sublime Porte 
fulfilled its promise of granting perfect civil and 
religious equality and protection to all its subjects." 
Nicholas I. had died before the war was over. 

Alexander II. (i) "Alexander II. (1855- 
1881), who came to the Russian throne in the 
midst of the Crimean War, abandoned the narrow 
and intolerant policy of his predecessor Nicholas, 
and, reverting, as it were, to the policy of Peter 
the Great, labored for popular reform and for the 
introduction into his dominions of the ideas and 
civilization of Western Europe." (2) His name 



lyo GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

has become forever illustrious through his eman- 
cipation of the serfs of Russia. After a revolt of 
the Poles in 1863 he adopted " a more reactionary 
policy, a policy which, persistently pursued, has 
yielded bitter fruit in Nihilism." The massacre of 
Syrian Christians by Druses and Turks in i860 
and the Bulgarian massacres of 1876 caused Alex- 
ander 11. to go to war with Turkey in 1877. Eng- 
land again saved the '' sick man's" estates. (3) 
On March 13, 1881, Alexander was assassinated 
by Nihilists. It was the natural fruit of the " exile 
system" to which he had become a partner in the 
government of Russia. 

Alexander III. (i) The son of the assassi- 
nated Alexander, as Alexander III., pursued an 
intolerable system of repression, reverting with a 
heavy rebound to the exclusive system of Nicholas 
I. The battle which he undertook to fight with his 
liberty-loving subjects went against him more and 
more up to the time of his death. 

Nicholas II. (i) In 1894 the son of Alexan- 
der III., and a grandson of Queen Victoria on his 
mother's side, became Nicholas II. Heir to a 
throne heavily burdened in many ways, the young 
Czar, like his uncle, Edward VIL, and his cousin, 
William IL, has already won the confidence of 
his subjects and the admiration of the world. (2) 
To begin with, Nicholas II. rules his subjects with 
a most gratifying liberality, thus winning his way 
into their hearts. In the next place, he proposes to 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 171 

give his country all the advantages of Western 
civilization. The attitude of the Czar in the late 
war of the great powers on China has not always 
been satisfactory to the world, but, considering that 
his proposition of disarmament has been rejected 
by other European powers, it can hardly cause sur- 
prise that he should wish to strengthen his position 
in Asia. Already virtually in possession of the 
countries that bound China on the north and north- 
west, with England pushing towards his pos- 
sessions from the south and east, we can hardly 
blame the Czar for building a trans-Siberian rail- 
road, and adding monstrous warships of American 
build to his navy. (3 )That in the game of occu- 
pying " unoccupied" China the Czar will presently 
take a hand can hardly be doubted, and that a con- 
flict with England, which seems imminent, will 
involve many other countries, including the United 
States, is an unpalatable but undoubted probability. 

ITALY 

(i) We left Italy at the close of the Middle 
Ages a struggling mass of disunited states. (2) 
From the time of Charles VIII. of France to Napo- 
leon's downfall Italy was the camping-ground and 
bone of contention for Turks, Spaniards, Aus- 
trians, and French, with nothing but disadvantage 
to herself. (3) The Congress of Vienna (181 5) 
condemned Italy to the ignominious slavery of 
restored Austrian despots. The restored princes 



172 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

ruled so arbitrarily that Italy, long determined to 
be free, finally could not endure things any longer. 
Thus came the unsuccessful Carbonari insurrection 
in 1820 and the equally ill-fated revolution of 1830 
in the '' papal states." Plans for the nationaliza- 
tion of Italy began to take shape before 1848, espe- 
cially that of " Young Italy," with the patriot 
Joseph Mazzini as its head. Crushed by the Aus- 
trians a third time (1848- 1849), ^^1 parties began 
to look to Sardinia as the basis of free and united 
Italy. The throne of Sardinia, a state of North- 
west Italy, was at this time held by Victor Em- 
manuel II. (1849- 1 878). His famous minister, 
Count Cavour, a man of large hopes and large 
plans, supported by Napoleon III., with whom he 
had shrewdly allied Italy, enabled Emmanuel to 
win the two great victories of Magenta and Sol- 
ferino against the Austrians. As a result of forced 
peace negotiations, Sardinia (i860) obtained 
Lombardy. Other Italian states now united them- 
selves to Emmanuel's kingdom. The outlaw hero 
Garibaldi, a most romantic and wonderful patriot, 
was the means of bringing Sicily and Naples into 
political union with Sardinia (i860). In 1866, 
as the result of Emmanuel's alliance with Prussia 
against Austria, he obtained coveted Venetia. In 

1870 Rome, instead of Turin, the old Sardinian 
capital, became the capital of united Italy, and in 

1 87 1 Victor Emmanuel entered the city and took 
up his residence there. 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 173 

Victor Emmanuel II. Notwithstanding much 
antagonism between the Quirinal and the Vatican, 
Victor Emmanuel's reign was signally successful. 
" A public system of education has been estab- 
lished; brigandage has been suppressed; agricul- 
ture has been encouraged, while the naval and mili- 
tary resources of the peninsula have been developed 
to such an extent that Italy, so recently the prey 
of foreign sovereigns, of petty native tyrants, and 
of adventurers, is now justly regarded as one of 
the great powers of Europe." Victor Emmanuel 
died, full of honors, in 1878. 

Humbert L The son of Emmanuel II. became 
Humbert I. of Italy in 1878. '' The most notable 
event of his reign is the formation of the Triple 
Alliance (1883)." He was assassinated by an 
Italian anarchist from New Jersey (1900). 

Victor Emmanuel III. Humbert's son is the 
present King of Italy under the title of Victor Em- 
manuel III. He has a firm hold on the affairs of 
Italy. Strictly attentive to business, liberal in pol- 
icy, and strong in alliance and a fine navy, the new 
king, pursuing the course of a man who knows his 
own mind, will have to be counted among the im- 
portant rulers of Europe. 

UNITED STATES 

" The most important of all histories to an 
American is that of his own country. Not only 
does it appeal to his patriotism, but in it is found, 



174 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

as nowhere else, the story of self-government by 
the people." It is the purpose of this chapter to 
trace rapidly, in harmony with the rest of general 
history, the rise, growth, and character of our own 
country. 

Settlements. (i) Until 1492 the Western 
Continent was, for all practical purposes, unknown 
to Europe. In that year Christopher Columbus — 
we all know the facts — gave Europe a New World, 
soon afterwards named, not Columbia, as one 
might have expected, but America, after Amerigo 
Vespucci, who first gave an account of the new 
world. (2) The voyages of the Cabots (1497- 
1498) and that of Magellan (1512) completed 
the period of discoveries. (3) The sixteenth cen- 
tury, the century of the Reformation in Europe, 
was a century of exploration and conquests in the 
New World. Spain led the way, exploring much 
of what now constitutes the United States, Mexico, 
and South America. The names of the explorers. 
Ponce de Leon, De Narvaez, and De Soto, together 
with those of Cortez, the conqueror of Mexico 
(1519-1521), and Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru 
(1532-1536), are probably most familiar. The 
French followed. Among the important French 
explorers were Cartier and Champlain. The mis- 
sionary settlements of the Huguenots in Canada 
and those of the Jesuits in the valley of the Mis- 
sissippi are thrillingly interesting. The English, 
basing their claims on the discoveries of the Cabots, 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 175 

also sent explorers and made settlements. The 
names of Drake, Gilbert, and Raleigh stand out 
prominent. The first permanent English colonies 
were those at Jamestown ( 1607), and at Plymouth 
by the Puritan Pilgrims (1620). Henry Hudson, 
in the employ of the East India Company, came 
in 1609, and out of the trading-station established 
in 1 614 grew the city of New York. (4) The 
seventeenth century, to which we have already re- 
ferred, was a century of colonial settlements, be- 
ginning, as has just been stated, with permanent 
colonies in Virginia, Massachusetts, and New 
York. Others followed in rapid succession. The 
Quakers under William Penn founded Philadel- 
phia in 1682. Indian massacres and intercolonial 
quarrels, arising from conflicting claims, were not 
infrequent in this formative period of the '' Thir- 
teen Colonies." Their early development in gov- 
ernment, religion, education, and commerce de- 
serve most careful study. 

Colonial Wars. " The year 1689 was an im- 
portant turning-point in American history. With 
it began the long struggle between England and 
France for colonial independence. It inaugurated 
an era of war which continued, without interrup- 
tions, for nearly a century, and ended in the inde- 
pendence of the United States of America and the 
formation of a new government in 1789, just a 
century later.'' (i) The first of these struggles 
was King William's War (1689-1697), a colonial 



176 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

extension of the quarrel between William III. of 
England and Louis XIV. of France. (2) Queen 
Anne's War (i 702-1 71 3) was a continuation of 
the same quarrel by Queen Anne, the successor of 
William and Mary. Indian massacres were among 
the dreadful accompaniments of these colonial 
wars. (3) King George's War (1744- 1 748) was 
also a contest reflected from a quarrel between 
England and France. The capture of Louisburg 
by New England Provincials is the only event of 
note. (4) The French and Indian War (1754- 
1763) was of colonial origin. It was caused by 
the collision of French and English colonial land 
claims in the valley of the Ohio. In this war 
George Washington became known to the world, 
and the decisive event in the struggle was Wolfe's 
brilliant victory over Montcalm at Quebec, 1759. 
The peace of 1763 gave Canada to England, but 
the claim of the Indians was ignored, and for this 
injustice the colonies suffered many indescribable 
sorrows. ( 5 ) Finally came the Revolution of the 
Thirteen Colonies against the mother-country Eng- 
land (1775-1789). This revolution was a stupen- 
dous struggle against ^' taxation without repre- 
sentation." Among the most memorable events of 
this war must be mentioned the battles of Lex- 
ington, Bunker Hill, Trenton, and Saratoga. The 
various sessions of the Continental Congress, caba- 
listic conspiracies against Washington, the com- 
mander-in-chief of the colonial armies, the winter 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 177 

at Valley Forge, and the treason of Arnold form 
thrilling chapters in the history of the American 
Revolution. The Declaration of Independence at 
Philadelphia (July 4, 1776) embodied the political, 
religious, and moral aspirations of the eighteenth 
century, and the Treaty of Paris (September 3, 
1783) endorsed these aspirations for centuries. 
With the formation of the Constitution (1787), 
the ratification of which was finally completed on 
May 29, 1790, a new nation had been born. This 
nation was named " The United States of 
America." 

United States Government. ( i ) The " Fa- 
thers" of the young republic, in order to avoid the 
dreadful consequences of absolutism and despotism, 
vested executive power constitutionally in an elec- 
tive President limited to terms of four years and 
assisted in his duties by a Cabinet of his own selec- 
tion. To these constitutional provisions against 
absolutism were added a legislative and judiciary 
body of popular representatives, both bodies, as a 
further precaution, being divided into upper and 
lower Houses. In accordance with the strict pro- 
visions of this Constitution, and as a tribute to the 
wisdom of its framers, only fifteen Amendments 
have thus far been made. (2) " When the ques- 
tion arose as to who should be the first President of 
the United States," all hearts instinctively turned 
to George Washington " as the man to whom the 
liberties of the country were due and who was most 

12 



178 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

worthy of the honor." He was inaugurated at 
New York, May 3, 1789, amid much rejoicing, 
and selected his Cabinet with singular wisdom. A 
new city, founded for the purpose, and to be called 
Washington, became the permanent capital in 
1800. As a result of unsatisfied war claims and of 
complications with revolutionary France, it re- 
quired all the diplomacy and forbearance of which 
the administration was capable to keep out of an 
armed conflict with England. Washington refused 
to stand for a third term. Retiring to beautiful 
Mount Vernon, he died on December 14, 1799. 
Of this noblest of Americans it has justly been 
said that he was " first in war, first in peace, and 
first in the hearts of his countrymen." History 
proudly calls him the " Father of his Country." 
Washington's successors, perhaps without excep- 
tion, constitute a long line of illustrious men in 
whose hands the government of the United States 
has become the pride of its great people and the 
admiration of the world, but of whom for obvious 
reasons we could not make conspicuous headings 
in so general a treatise as this, but whose names 
we must not pass by in connection with the land- 
marks of history for which they stand. (3) A 
characteristic feature of the government of the 
United States is its election system. National and 
State issues are decided by popular suffrage, from 
which, since the Civil War (1861-1865), no male 
citizen, except for proper reasons, has been ex- 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 179 

eluded. Although capable of abuse, this election 
system with its direct appeal to the intelligence of 
the citizen, has produced great political parties, 
whose interests it has been to propose and carry 
out national policies to the satisfaction of the 
majority. The '' spoils system," a calamitous con- 
sequence of " rotation in office," as inaugurated 
in Jackson's administration (1828- 1836), was 
effectively corrected in Arthur's administration 
(1880-1884) by a '* Civil Service Act," guarding 
'the appointment to political offices by means of 
competitive examinations. 

United States Wars. The political and inter- 
national history of the United States, as of all 
nations, is inseparable from her wars, (i) In 
Madison's administration international complica- 
tions caused the war of 181 2 with England. 
Among the specific causes were " the impressment 
of American seamen, violation of neutral rights 
on the American coast by British cruisers, the Brit- 
ish Orders in Council (by which American vessels 
were forbidden to enter any ports in Europe except 
those of Great Britain and her ally, Sweden), and 
the inciting of the Indians to war." Among the 
significant events of this war were the ocean vic- 
tory of the American warship over the British 
'' Guerriere," and Perry's illustrious victory on 
Lake Erie. " Perry's victory saved the North- 
west." In 1 8 14 the city of Washington was cap- 
tured, with most serious consequences to her public 



i8o GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

buildings and records. The final effort of Great 
Britain was made against New Orleans. Here 
General Andrew Jackson, later on President, on 
January 8, 1815, completely defeated the British 
General Packenham. '' As events proved, the 
slaughter of New Orleans was useless. A treaty 
of peace had already been signed" at Ghent. " The 
treaty left affairs very much as they were before. 
Great Britain did not give up the right of impress- 
ment. But no fear was felt that she would attempt 
to seize American seamen again." (2) TexaSj ad- 
mitted into the union with the consent of Mexico 
(July 4, 1845), "claimed that her western boun- 
dary was the Rio Grande River. Mexico held that 
the Nueces River was the true boundary. Between 
these two rivers lay a wide tract of land which 
both countries claimed. The question of its owner- 
ship led to war" (May 13, 1846). Taylor's vic- 
tory over the Mexican General Santa Anna at 
Buena Vista, February 23, 1847, ended the war 
in that section. " The most important campaign 
of the war was intrusted to General Scott, the hero 
of Chippewa and Lundy's Lane in 1814." He 
finally captured the strong fortress Chapultepec by 
storm, and thus ended the war. '' A treaty of 
peace was signed February 2, 1848, at the village 
of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It was highly advan- 
tageous to the United States." Out of the terri- 
tory acquired " have been carved California, Ne- 
vada, Utah, Arizona, and part of Wyoming, Colo- 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS i8i 

rado, and New Mexico." (3) ''In the annals of 
Virginia for 16 19 we find the following remark by 
Rolfe, who married Pocahontas and introduced the 
culture of tobacco : ' About the last of August 
came in a Dutch marine-of-war, that sold us 20 
Negars.' With this brief record began the long 
chain of events that led to the Civil War" (1861- 
1865). Finally ''the question of slavery had be- 
come the most persistent and complex in American 
political life." Prominent ever since the foundation 
of the Union, gradually it had crowded all other 
questions to the background. In i860 fifteen 
States employed slave labor. The sixteen other 
States did not. The former were commonly called 
Southern or slave States, and the latter Northern 
or free States. The Presidential election of i860 
disclosed the nation drawn up in sectional lines. 
Mr. Lincoln uttered a great truth when he de- 
clared, in 1858, that " This government cannot 
permanently endure half slave and half free. 
. . . It will become all one thing or all the 
other." " An overwhelming electoral defeat 
proved to the Southern States that they could not 
in the Union extend their peculiar labor system 
beyond their own borders. Inside their own bor- 
ders they believed that system in danger. Eleven 
States asserted that they had a right to secede, 
passed enactments withdrawing from the Union, 
and formed a political association under the name 
of the Confederate States of America." The first 



i82 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

gun was fired when Fort Sumter, off Charleston, 
South CaroHna, was attacked by the Confederate 
General Beauregard, on April 12, 1861. The sur- 
render of the Confederate General Lee to General 
Grant took place at Appomattox Court-House, in 
Virginia, on April 9, 1865. These two events 
mark the armed beginning and conclusion of a civil 
war which, as to the number of soldiers engaged, 
the number of battles fought, and the cost of the 
struggle, is unequalled in history. " The arbitra- 
ment of the sword decided two questions which, 
with equal definiteness and permanence, could be 
determined in no other way. The first question 
concerned the American Union, the permanence 
of which was demonstrated and guaranteed. 
There was to be but one flag from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific, from the Lakes to the Gulf. The sec- 
ond question concerned the system of human 
slavery, which was abolished from the continent. 
Under the protection of that flag all were to be 
free men." The return of the victorious and the 
vanquished to the pursuits of peace was the aston- 
ishment of the whole world. (4) The Cubans, 
oppressed by '' a corrupt and despotic colonial sys- 
tem which ignored local interests and sought only 
the advantage of Spain, remote on the other side 
of the ocean," felt their wretchedness more and 
more, and gradually became irresistibly anxious 
to possess and exercise some of the natural rights 
which their American neighbors enjoyed. The 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 183 

century which has just closed witnessed several 
Cuban insurrections of gigantic proportions, the 
first one in 1868 and the last one in 1894. Even 
the notorious General Wyler could not end the war. 
Sympathy for outraged Cuba made the people of 
the United States anxious to take a hand against 
despotic Spain. The last straw that broke the 
camel's back was the dastardly destruction of the 
American battleship " Maine" in the harbor of Ha- 
vana (February 15, 1898). Actual war began on 
April 21, 1898. To Americans this war was ren- 
dered memorable by the victory of Admiral Dewey 
in Manila Bay (May i) when the fleet of Admiral 
Montojo was destroyed, by the annihilation of the 
squadron of Admiral Cervera off Santiago harbor 
(July 3), and by the surrender of the city of San- 
tiago and of the adjacent district, with all the 
troops and ammunitions of war (July 17). The 
conflict had lasted only ninety-six days when peace 
negotiations were begun through M. Cambon, 
French Ambassador at Washington (July 26). 
'^ An attempt at this early day to sum up the conse- 
quences would be presumption." Among other 
results we note the war of the United States with 
the Philippines, which happily at this writing has 
about closed. As a general result of the whole 
course of events, America has, almost against her 
will, '' taken her seat in the parliament of nations." 
(5) In 1900 the ''Boxers," an anti-foreign as- 
sociation of Chinese, originating from commercial 



1 84 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

imprudences, and particularly bitter against Chris- 
tian Missionaries, attempted wholesale massacres. 
Among the besieged in Pekin were the foreign le- 
gations, including the United States Minister to 
China, Mr. Conger, and his attaches. The powers 
of Europe and the United States at once demanded 
satisfaction, and prepared to relieve the strain of 
the situation. The Chinese government, inspired 
very probably by the Dowager Empress, confessed 
its inability to cope with the Boxers. Thereupon 
relief expeditions were sent to China, among them 
one from the United States, and after severe fight- 
ing, Pekin was captured and the members of the 
legations saved from horrible death. The Chinese 
court, however, had escaped to the North. After 
long negotiations between the court and the foreign 
states, conducted chiefly through Li Hung Chang 
and Mr. Conger, satisfactory indemnities and 
promises of good behavior closed the war. For 
a while it looked as if the disintegration of the 
Chinese Empire was at hand, but the usual jealousy 
of the powers of Europe, together with protesta- 
tions on the part of the United States, has pre- 
vented this issue for the present. The foreign 
armies have left China and the Chinese court has 
returned to Pekin. 

United States Treaties. The political history 
of the United States includes reference to impor- 
tant treaties. Apart from those to which reference 
Has been made in connection with wars, and apart 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 185 

from the famous Missouri Compromise Bill of 
Clay, regarding the admission of slave States, 
various international quarrels about boundaries, 
fisheries, etc., have been effectively settled without 
armed conflicts. Among the most significant 
treaties of this character was the Clayton-Bulwer 
Treaty (1850) between England and the United 
States. " By this treaty both the United States 
and Great Britain renounced any exclusive control 
over the proposed ship-canal" through Nicaragua. 
At the same time, they both agreed to " neither 
occupy, fortify, nor colonize Nicaragua, Costa 
Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any part of Cen- 
tral America." This treaty has not proved en- 
tirely satisfactory, and the Spanish-American war 
of 1898 emphasizes the fact that such a canal, 
wherever it may be built, " must be under the 
unshared control of the United States." One of 
the most remarkable and far-reaching treaties was 
Commodore Perry's treaty between the United 
States and Japan (May 31, 1854). "It was 
agreed that the ports of Shimoda and Hakodate 
should be open to American vessels, that an 
American consul should reside at Shimoda, and 
that Americans should enjoy a certain liberty of 
trade and travel in some of the coast cities." This 
treaty virtually opened the doors of Japan to all 
nations. Another very important treaty was Bur- 
lingame's treaty for us with China (1868), estab- 
lishing embassies for both countries. Chinese im- 



i86 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

migration, however, made the Geary Act necessary 
(1892), excluding Chinese, with some exceptions, 
from this country. Even the diplomacy of Wu 
Ting Fang, late Chinese minister to this country, 
failed to remove this, as it certainly seems, neces- 
sary protection of home-labor in the United States. 
In 1872 a treaty regarding the northwestern fron- 
tier between the United States and the British pos- 
sessions, gave a group of islands between Van- 
couver Island and Washington Territory to the 
United States. In 1877 two commissioners of ar- 
bitration, reinforced by the Belgian minister to the 
United States, decided that the United States 
" should pay $5,500,000 for the use of the fishery 
privileges for twelve years." The matter has been 
satisfactorily adjusted quite lately. In 1894 the 
Canadian sealers agreed to accept $425,000 in full 
settlement of their claims against the United 
States, but the dispute is not yet closed. " A hum- 
ble and comprehensive apology" by the Chilian 
minister of foreign affairs (1892) probably pre- 
vented war with that country. Lord Salisbury's 
consent to a treaty of arbitration between Vene- 
zuela and Great Britain (1897), following a testy 
message to the United States Congress by Presi- 
dent Cleveland (1895), saved the United States 
from possible war with Great Britain as the pro- 
tector of Venezuela in a boundary quarrel. The 
war with Spain (1898) has emphasized the im- 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 187 

portance of the annexation of Hawaii (1898) on 
request of the islanders. 
Material Resources of the United States. 

It would be absolutely incommensurate with the 
"general" history idea to chronicle the stages of 
progress in our material resources. It must suffice 
simply to call the student's attention to the re- 
markable developments of agricultural, mining, 
and manufacturing interests. Under the mighty 
stimulus of inventions, such as the " cotton-gin," 
steam and electric machinery, and a host of trans- 
portation agencies, industry and commerce have 
placed the United States in the fore- front of the 
nations. The colonial and revolutionary money 
difficulties have nearly all disappeared since the 
re-establishment of national banks, so unceremo- 
niously disturbed in Jackson's administration ; and 
since the " gold standard" has become practically 
permanent, panics and fluctuation in capital are less 
frequent. Whether the United States can escape 
serious complications as a result of large trusts and 
monopolies is quite a question. 

Population. Among the most fascinating sub- 
jects in connection with the United States is the 
growth and character of our population. Origi- 
nally made up chiefly of English, French, Spanish, 
Dutch, and Swedes, with the predominance of the 
English, the colonies rapidly acquired large num- 
bers of Germans, etc. Then, too, there were the 
native Indians and the imported negroes. The re- 



1 88 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

markable '' westward movement" of population in 
consequence of the California " gold fever" has 
not ceased, and finds companion-pieces only in the 
exodus to Australia later on and to Alaska within 
the last few years. Since the Civil War the char- 
acter of immigration is not so satisfactory. Large 
numbers of Chinese, Italians, and the '' dregs of 
Europe" have been dumped upon our shores, much 
to the confusion of social conditions. Race riots, 
anarchistic plots, and strikes are among the calami- 
tous results. But, notwithstanding some defects 
in the body politic, it is likely that the final results 
of immigration and its absorption by American in- 
stitutions will be a highly satisfactory cosmopolitan 
population. The happiness of the American people 
is greatly enlarged by well-organized systems of 
amusements, by parks, art, architecture, books, etc. 
Religion. The early colonial bias towards in- 
tolerance, as in New England and Maryland, was 
a natural sequence of momentum acquired from 
European persecutions. Even before the Revolu- 
tion a measure of religious tolerance and equality 
had come, and such superstitious commotions as 
" witchcraft" and exile for conscience' sake had 
become practically impossible. Amon^ the funda- 
mental guarantees of the United States Constitu- 
tion is religious freedom and equality before the 
law. This provision was designed to prevent an 
American repetition of European religious perse- 
cutions, — a repetition which, judging from colo- 



THE AGE OF POLITICAL REVOLUTIONS 189 

nial intolerance, seemed quite probable. Puritans, 
Quakers, Huguenots, Catholics, etc., all flocked to 
this ''home of the free." With a few important 
exceptions, there is no denominational exclusion 
from political offices, and all denominations, in- 
cluding even the Mormons, etc., are allowed free- 
dom of worship. The individuality thus encour- 
aged is not only thoroughly democratic, but, with 
some exceptions, highly conducive to good govern- 
ment. 

Education. Among the remarkable things in 
the history of the United States is the progress 
along educational lines. Backward as the Southern 
colonies, inspired by sentiments similar to that of 
Governor Berkely, of Virginia, were in the educa- 
tion of the masses, William and Mary College was 
founded as early as 1692. The Northern colonies, 
inspired by educated leaders and religious consid- 
eration, laid the foundations of a public school sys- 
tem almost as soon as settlements became perma- 
nent; and Harvard College was founded in 1636. 
The Quakers made provisions for the education of 
the masses in the year of their founding of Phila- 
delphia (1682). From little beginnings, and long 
hampered progress until the Civil War, the educa- 
tional system of the United States to-day has come 
to provide for all classes from the lowest to the 
highest, and, supported by generous appropriation 
of lands, taxes, etc., with an ever-improving sys- 
tem of normal schools and universities, the pros- 



I90 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

pects are exceedingly encouraging. Newspapers, 
magazines, libraries, travel, etc., add largely to the 
sum total of the education of the American people. 

Literature. ( i ) Even Colonial days produced 
some writers of fame, among them Jonathan Ed- 
wards, the New England divine. " The first print- 
ing-press in this country was set up at Cambridge, 
Massachusetts, in 1639." (2) The war for Amer- 
ican independence produced political writers. 
Among the permanent results are Jefferson's " Dec- 
laration of Independence," and the " Federalist" 
collections of Hamilton, Jay, and Madison. (3) 
The greater leisure of the nineteenth century has 
given us Washington Irving's " Sketch Book" 
(1819), Bryant's " Thanatopsis," and the later 
charming poems of Poe, Whittier, Longfellow, 
Lowell, and Holmes. (4) Fiction probably scored 
its first victory in Cooper's "Spy" (1821). As 
history efforts we name Bancroft's " History of 
the United States," Prescott's brilliant works, and 
the fine sketches of Parkman. ( 5 ) Emerson prob- 
ably best represents philosophical essays. Nor 
should we forget Wheaton's " International Law," 
and the famous works of Audubon and Wilson on 
birds, or Webster and Worcester on words. Pe- 
riodical literature has come in such abundance, and 
characterized by such strokes of power in all direc- 
tions, that one feels almost lost in the attempt to 
read even the best writers. 

References : (i) Duruy ; (2) Morris. 



WORLD PROSPECTS 

We are constrained to close our book with a 
line or two on the prospects before us. (i) 
Judging from the vigorous policy of the European 
powers to divide among themselves all " unoccu- 
pied" lands, a policy as questionable as it is old, 
it is likely that Asia, Africa, and Oceanica will 
gradually be appropriated in all parts, either by 
armed force or international arbitration, and even 
the United States, adhering quite consistently to 
the Monroe doctrine up to the present, will proba- 
bly, in self-interest, have to take a hand in these 
proceedings, especially in Asia. The most immi- 
nent conflict is that between Great Britain and Rus- 
sia for preponderance or supremacy in Asia, which 
in great part these two formidable powers already 
occupy. Africa and Oceanica have already been 
pretty exactly parcelled out between European na- 
tions, with the prospect of predominance, in both 
cases, of Great Britain. In the far distance we see 
an African republic like that of the United States, 
accompanied probably . by free Canada and free 
Australia. (2) The present Industrial Age, char- 
acterized by vast projects of material development, 
promoted to a great degree by the " territorial ex- 
pansion" consequent upon wars of conquest and 

191 



192 GENERAL HISTORY WAY MARKS 

international " reciprocity" in commerce, and made 
possible by increased facilities of transportation 
and intercommunication, by means of railroads, 
ships, canals, telegraph, telephone, automobiles, 
etc., will probably lay the material foundations for 
a new age whose distinctive and glorious charac- 
teristic shall be intellectuality and spirituality. We 
deplore that for the present this halcyon prospect is 
hardly credible, and yet such is the nature of man 
and our conceptions of God, that we firmly believe 
in a far more perfect humanity, an approach at 
least to the " image of God" in which we have been 
made. As a confirmation of the conclusion in 
question we need only consider the adaptability of 
world-connections as produced by marches of 
armies, routes of commerce, and the fruits of 
travel, international expositions, newspapers, phi- 
lanthropists, missionaries, etc. May the Golden 
Days be the glory of the Twentieth Century ! 



INDEX REMARKS 

¥¥ 

It is intended that teachers using this book as 
the basis of lesson-assignments shall require stu- 
dents to work out the lessons in connection with 
larger texts, such as that of Myers or Duruy, in 
which cases the index of the authors in question 
will have to be faithfully consulted. For cross- 
reference from other texts to this book, its Table 
of Contents will be a sufficient guide. 



13 193 



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